


Elegy

by thirdholmes



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Elegy, Gen, Manipulation, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Shakespeare, endeavour - Freeform, mental torment, serial killings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirdholmes/pseuds/thirdholmes
Summary: Before the events of Arcadia, after Morse’s return in Ride, the detective constable is sent out to look over a sudden death and finds himself caught up in a double homicide, both bodies arranged in symbolic manners that reflect the works of the acclaimed bard. A message from the killer indicates that this is not the end, merely the beginning of his work. The spirit of Mason Gull shows it’s hand in this, but dead men don’t walk, and they certainly don’t kill. Could it be the work of an accomplice? Or a much more convoluted and sinister plot than Morse realizes? With cryptic clues and madness at every turn, the Oxford City Police must race against the clock to save the potential victims, especially when one of their own lies at risk.





	1. Sonnet

He had decided that it was going to be an undoubtedly mundane day in Cowley Police Station the moment he set foot in the office that morning. The light aroma of lemon cleaning solution from the overnight staff having done spring tidying met Morse when he made his way to his desk. Sure enough, the layer of dust that accumulated in his absence during his incarceration and after his release had been utterly eradicated, leaving behind a smooth, but slightly scarred desk surface. Twin grooves were scratched into it from someone having none too kindly moved his typewriter backward to clean beneath it and he spared a moment to rub at the new lines with his thumb, half hoping that they’d disappear, but to no avail. He wrestled the typewriter back into place, intent on getting a head start on the small pile of reports he had to write up.

It would be another two hours before Thursday needed picking up from his house but the birds had already emerged to mark the start of a new day, Morse noticed when he pulled open a window to admit a crisp, infantile breeze. The snow on the ground was peppered with holes from shoots of supple grass poking through or spots where droplets of water from the melting ice on the trees and gutters had fallen. He shivered but remained in place, taking a rare self-indulgent minute to be an observer to the day, the yawning sun and the purity of the frigid air.

“You’re going to catch your death stood like that, matey.” Strange’s voice severed the tranquil moment. For a man of his stature he had managed to enter surprisingly undetected, most likely due to the fact that Morse hadn’t been the most attentive to his indoor surroundings.

Morse turned around and flashed a small smile instead of a snide scoff he would have reserved for someone else. “Oddly enough, the doctors informed me that a breath of fresh air _wouldn’t_ kill me.”

Strange shook his head and chuckled a bit, draping his thick police constable’s jacket over the back of his chair. “Close that for me, would you? Wouldn’t want the radiator to give up the ghost before the day’s even begun, would we?”

Morse obliged, pulling the window shut once again with only the slightest squeal of rust emitting from it. Then, with a nod to Strange as they both took their seats, chancing being hypocritical, “You’re in early.”

“When in Rome.” Strange shrugged vaguely, but it was not a good enough answer and he could see that from the perplexed look on the other man’s face, indicating he should elaborate. “Exams coming up, aren’t they? It’s not a sock drawer secret that you’re the brightest lad in the county, figured if I took a leaf out of your book I’d have a fighting chance.”

Morse snorted, thinking that it was a good natured jibe but saw that Strange actually seemed genuine and ducked his head, hiding the fact that he was actually a bit touched by the compliment and unsure of how to respond to it. Thankfully, before the silence could become awkward, Strange found something else to say.

“Jakes’ll be bringing Thursday in this morning, by the way,” he informed Morse, blessedly not belated in doing so. Had he forgotten and brought it up hours later it’d be likely that the detective constable would be well on his way out of the door on a wasted journey. “Said something about letting you get another hour’s kip before coming in but I think we all knew that was wishful thinking.”

“Oh.” was all Morse said for a moment. Then, “Right. Okay.”

He barely recalled staying late the night before and Thursday attempting to remain behind with him to see him out safely but surrendering to exhaustion and half ordering Morse to try and sleep in the next morning.

Naturally, Morse did no such thing. The tinges of mauve that marked the beginnings of dark circles under his eyes attested to that.

Hours shuffled by and eventually the station was populated with its daytime officers, Bright marching energetically to his office with the enthusiasm of a child on their first day of school, confident and lionhearted, and Jakes and Thursday right on time, the latter huffing on his ornate pipe, the former stubbing out his spent cigarette in the nearest ashtray.

“Wotcher,” Jakes said as his way of greeting, nodding good naturedly at Morse before dropping into his seat.

“Morning, Morse,” Thursday tipped his hat towards his bagman, the smile showing in his eyes rather than his mouth.

“Morning, sir.”

And thus the day went on.

Phones rang and typewriters clacked in a cacophony of sound, neighbors rang in to complain about trespassing dogs, a stolen car was in fact borrowed by a sibling that was in town. Morse forged through his own workload, ignoring the exodus of fellow officers as the clock struck time for their noon break. Strange offered to get a sarnie for him while he was out, an offer which Morse politely declined. He’d accidentally grown accustomed to his own sporadic eating schedule and wasn’t as hungry as he should have been, much to the chagrin of Thursday who looked a tick away from kidnapping him and forcing him to attend teatime at his house, both well knowing that Win Thursday wouldn’t dare miss an opportunity to unleash her maternal nature and dote on him.

It wasn’t until further in the afternoon that anything even remotely pressing came along.

“Look lively, Morse,” a hand clamped down on his shoulder and at the same time a piece of paper was waved under his nose before fluttering to lie limply across the keys of his typewriter. He could smell the sharp scent of Jakes’s too strong aftershave and cigarettes and didn’t have to turn his neck much to confirm the identity of the detective sergeant who had interrupted his paperwork. “Sudden death on Kingston Road, Thursday wants you to give it a shufti, the uniforms just need it cleared.”

Morse crooked an eyebrow ever so slightly, almost dubious, but mostly hesitant to leave his desk work for something that someone less capable than he could do easily. “He couldn’t tell me himself?”

As if on cue, a horrible, wracking cough sounded from the inspector’s office behind them, followed by the dull thud of a fist connecting rather aggressively with the surface of a desk, effectively answering Morse’s question.

Jakes patted his back. “Well that settles things. Off you pop then, face the day and all that.”

Morse wanted to be irritated with him but couldn’t find it in himself so he merely took up the paper and scanned the address before shrugging his tawny coat on and folding it into his pocket.

————

It didn’t take long to drive to the location, and he parked along the street directly behind the light blue vehicle he knew to be the one belonging to Dr. DeBryn. The house looked identical to all the ones surrounding it, tall, brick, and ivy choked with the snow half melted off the shingles. A somewhat familiar PC stood as sentinel in the doorway and Morse flashed his warrant card briefly before getting an affirmative nod and an apathetic “‘e’s in the back garden.”

The house bore all the signs of a well loved family member, which picked at a nerve the way an inexperienced musician tested a string. He avoided the smiling eyes in the photos that decked the hallway to the sitting room, his gaze skirting over the cheap plastic Easter eggs adorning random bits of furniture, clustered around framed drawings done by what must have been grandchildren.

There would be no Easter at their grandfather’s this year. No eggs and dye kits bought at Richardson’s for a few quid, no hunts through the house while the parents loitered about in the kitchen. He could feel the usual emptiness of a newly vacant house, a certain hollowness that couldn’t be replicated by any other means.

He banished the depressing thoughts from his mind and kept going.

The door to the small backyard was propped open with a sheaf of newspapers wedged beneath it like a makeshift doorstop. The panels of glass were fogged over with condensation due to the heat inside of the house and the coolness outside. Morse could feel the cold wafting in like an interloper, caressing his face and creating a pink tinge on his cheeks as he stepped outside to face it.

It was always a strangely familiar sight to see Max DeBryn sitting beside a corpse. It was as reliable as Thursday having his pipe in his pocket.

“Good afternoon,” Morse ventured, sticking his hands in his pockets and attempting to avoid hunching his shoulders forward anxiously but failing. He shifted on his feet, skirting around the patch of grass occupied by the pathologist and the body of an elderly man in a wooly cardigan and pyjama bottoms. The contents of a bag of bird seed were strewn about from being dropped, and DeBryn kept looking toward the mess, possibly to check for intruding avians.

“Not for this man,” the doctor adjusted his glasses with a gloved finger, glancing up at Morse with his usual shrewd look. “The deceased is one Robert Kingsley, seventy-eight years of age, died some time after ten this morning. And as of-” he held up his wrist to check his watch and found that it wasn’t there. “-well, as of about two minutes ago, I’m marking his death as suspicious.”

Morse blinked, unsure if he had heard him correctly. “I was under the impression that this was just a sudden death.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” DeBryn raised an eyebrow, crooking his hand and beckoning Morse closer.

His stomach twisted but he managed to ignore it, crouching next to DeBryn who turned down the collar of the cardigan to reveal what appeared to be a puncture wound, red and irritated.

“Although I see clear signs of respiratory failure I’m of the mind that Mr. Kingsley here was given some sort of injection which acted as a catalyst for it. I’ll know more after I run a toxicological examination during the post mortem but this doesn’t look like someone Saint Peter would have been expecting any time soon.” DeBryn let the material fall back to cover the wound, sitting back on his haunches. A facsimile of modesty given the circumstances. “Just your luck then, I suppose. No need to go stir crazy in the office now that you’ve got a possible murder on your hands.”

Luck.

He thought of the plastic eggs and pastel drawings.

“Luck,” Morse repeated dully, tasting a bitterness in his mouth. “I’ll make sure to relay that to his family members, shall I?”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Who discovered the body?” he interrupted DeBryn bluntly, hoping to spare them both a fretful apology.

The pathologist looked mildly grateful. “Next door neighbor. The yard is shared, as you can see.” he swung an arm to indicate the space and the second door not far from the one Morse came from minutes before. “He noticed the body when he stepped out for a smoke about an hour ago. His wife saw the deceased fetching the paper around ten this morning so this occurred after that.”

“Are they still at home?” Morse inquired.

“As far as I’m aware.”

Morse stood up and straightened out his suit jacket, tucking his shirt in and smoothing down the sides of his coat, finding the reassuring bulge of his notebook and pen in the pocket. “I’ll make my way over to get a statement. Give us a call when you get your results.”

“Of course.” DeBryn mirrored him and stood, staring at the body watchfully before his eyes flitted to Morse’s. “And Morse,” he pressed his lips together, sighing through his nose. “I truly am sorry. As- ah- as one so accustomed to the comings and goings of life I often forget how sensitive it really is.”

“Water under the bridge.” Morse assured him, waving his hand dismissively and quelling his lingering discomfort. A small group of birds landed cautiously near the pile of seeds before erratically picking at their newly discovered trove.

“C’est la vie.” was what was said in return, the pathologist turning away to kick at the birds, shooing them away somewhat successfully.

————

The statement from the two neighbors, a Mr. and Mrs. Lane, was just as DeBryn had told him. To make matters more complicated for what was yet to become a full investigation, neither of them had noticed anything suspicious in the hours around his death. No visitors, recognizable or not, at least that they knew of. They were under the impression that his heart had given out and Morse let them continue to believe just that lest word get out and bring Dorothea Frazil and her loyal photographer to their door.

When asked if anyone else resided with them they divulged that they had a tenant who rented the top room from them but he departed for a business trip first thing in the morning.

Kingsley’s son, Robert Kingsley Jr. had left his number and address with the Lanes in case of emergency and they readily handed it over to Morse, imploring him to carry on their condolences.

The son had only come back the day before from a holiday abroad in Italy with his wife and three children. Luggage tags verified this. They hadn’t left the house all day, apparently. Kingsley Sr.’s daughter was up in Scotland with her husband and child visiting in-laws. Robert would have to come identify the body at his convenience just to be certain, Morse hesitantly informed the grief stricken man.

“How did he die?” Robert finally asked once he collected himself, holding his wife’s hand like a lifeline, unfazed by the screaming of boisterous children in the next room. “Was it-” he swallowed uncomfortably, blinking away tears. “It was quick, wasn’t it?”

“We’re not completely certain at the moment.” Morse answered enigmatically, rubbing the corner of his notebook with his thumb. “Respiratory failure is the most likely explanation.” Induced by what, he did not divulge. “I’d say he didn’t suffer much.” Of course he would _say_ that. Consolation was rarely a truthful art.

Robert nodded, clearing his throat. “Good that he died at home though. Not some godforsaken hospital like mum. He always dreaded that. It’s good he died at home.” As if he said it enough times it would lessen the blow dealt by the fact that either way his father was still dead.

He was suddenly reminded very vividly of the death of his own father at home and his mother withering away in the harsh environment of the hospital, the half dead flowers he picked for her barely making an impact in the sharp sting of antiseptic and bleach.

Morse gave them his card, excused himself, and returned to the station.

————

“At approximately two fifteen in the afternoon, Mr. Samuel Lane went outside for a smoke, his wife, Angela, still inside listening to a program on the radio.” Morse held his notebook open in front of him as he stood at Thursday’s desk, delivering a summary of the events. “He saw the deceased and dropped his cigarette, running over to see if he was still alive. He called to his wife to dial 999 upon realizing that life was extinct. There’s a tenant unaccounted for so we’ll have to check his alibi when he returns. Kingsley’s son, Robert Jr., and his family are the only relatives currently in the country. His wife is his alibi and for all I can see he’s just a man broken up over losing his father.”

Thursday took a draw from his pipe, sending a quickly dispersing cloud of tobacco smoke into the air. The ventilation in his office came chiefly from the door being opened when people went in and out so as of that moment there was a thin haze building up around the desk. There was something vaguely humorous about it and he was struck with the odd image of the blue caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, the sage elder concealed behind his hookah plumes. It wasn’t the smell Morse minded; if anything it was comforting, something that he could associate to the closest thing he had to a father: a mentor. No, what he minded was the fact that it was becoming slightly suffocating. But he kept his discomfort to himself.

“You’re sure it’s grief?” Thursday set the pipe aside in a glass tray, letting it burn out. He leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. “Often times guilt can disguise itself that way.”

“Quite sure.” Morse affirmed, stowing the notebook back into his pocket so he could fold his hands behind his back. “Dr. DeBryn should phone once he’s completed the post-mortem to confirm if it is a homicide or not. It’s been a few hours already so I would expect it to be soon.”

“Trust you to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

He felt an embarrassed warmth at the back of his neck and he rubbed at it, only being successful in ruffling the hair he found there. “This one’s not entirely my doing, sir. DeBryn had reasonable suspicion at the scene and I don’t entirely disagree with it.”

Thursday gave a look of appraisal. “I see.”

Morse looked at his feet. A beat of silence.

“Are you certain you’re up for this?” Thursday probed, looking him over as if there would be some physical indication that he wasn’t up to snuff, that he hadn’t gotten his sea legs back. “It’s not too soon after…?” he made an obscurely motion with his hand, gesturing at an invisible concept that was at the same time known to them.

“What, prison?” Morse said a bit too acerbically, the sharpness of the words slicing clean through the clearing haze.

It still irritated- incensed- him that no one could completely address what happened to him. Why should he be the only one cursed with the inability to sweep it under a rug or conjure a euphemism to refer to ‘it’ by? His absence wasn’t described as him being wrongly incarcerated due to the malicious actions of a corrupt assistance chief constable, but rather as him having ‘gone away’. As if Morse had been on some posh holiday rather than locked up for months with the monsters and dregs of humanity he put in there.

Every week he dreamt of Thursday, Jakes, and Strange finding his body hanging in his cell like Rosalind Stromming’s, an outsider even in the event of his own death. It changed on occasion as well. His own hand due to fear and desperation or a revenge driven criminal that recognized him. He couldn’t find solace in waking up because the nightmares could so easily become a reality.

So it came as a surprise when Thursday grimly said, “Yes. Prison.”

“I’ll be fine, sir.” he forced what he hoped was a convincing smile and nodded, but he could feel the tightness of it. _I’ll be fine._ But Thursday wasn’t asking that. The answer to Thursday’s unfinished question was _I won’t break._

But Morse couldn’t entirely ensure that. His safety rarely rested in his own hands.

The phone on the desk began to ring and the inspector deftly picked up, receiver poised near his chin as he answered, “Thursday.”

Morse looked up, expectant. “DeBryn?”

Thursday nodded once. “Yes, he's right here.” A pause as DeBryn spoke. “Of course, right away, see you there.” He hung it back on the base and faced Morse grimly with an expression that was known to be the harbinger of unpleasant news. “We’re needed in the mortuary as a matter of urgency. You especially.”

“Especially?” Morse raised his eyebrows, feeling anxiety prickle in the back of his mind.

“It seems this body has something to tell you.”

————

DeBryn was folding a sheet over the body of a young woman when they arrived in the morgue which confused Morse for a moment until he spotted the ‘sudden’ from earlier, Robert Kingsley Sr., on the next table over.

“Inspector.” the pathologist inclined his head towards Thursday, receiving a polite tip of the hat in turn. He looked to Morse and deflated a bit, shoulders slumping under his lab coat. Wordlessly he ambled to Kingsley’s side and brandished a pair of tweezers.

“I hadn’t removed it yet,” DeBryn began, manoeuvering the jaw open and peering inside at something. “My first thought was to just…call.”

“Removed what, exactly?” Thursday moved forward while Morse lingered behind, not wanting to be any closer to the pair of corpses than necessary.

“A foreign object lodged in the mouth of our victim.”

“And where does Morse fit into this?”

“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps I merely adore his shining personality.” When he was met with blank stares from both policemen he sighed. “I just thought he might have a more extensive knowledge than I about the placement of coins under the tongues of dead men.”

With that, he held up a thin object pinched in the tweezers, metallic and polished, and- as DeBryn said- in the shape of a coin.

Morse’s lips parted as he exhaled softly, forgoing his self induced exile and joining the two men on the other side of the room. DeBryn ran it under the tap and dried it off before gently placing it in his palm and handing it over.

“What in God’s name is that about?” Thursday removed his hat, staring with blatant shock.

“Not that god.” The cold sensation of morbid realization flooded him as he turned the coin over in his hand. It was a two pence piece, low denomination, and stamped into it across the raised design were the letters ‘AB’. Initials? Whatever they were, it was peculiar. And deliberate. “I don’t know what these letters are for, but the coin,” he passed it to Thursday to allow him a turn at examination. “It’s Charon’s obol. In the culture of the ancient Greeks they would place coins under the tongues of the deceased to act as payment for Charon, the ferryman to the underworld. The placement occurs at time of death. The low value of the coin is meant to represent that death doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor because all must die in the end.”

“Equality in death,” DeBryn mused. “How poetic. Speaking of which, allow me to show you this.”

He closed the jaw and turned Kingsley’s head to the side with some difficulty, but it was enough to angle the ear upwards. “Note the two small puncture wounds in the ear.”

Two small perforations on the inner part of his ear could be seen, light pink from DeBryn having swabbed the blood away.

Two puncture wounds in an elderly man’s ear; an elderly man who was found dead in his garden. With the surname of Kingsley.

“‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me.’” Morse half murmured, not entirely realizing he had spoken aloud.

“The ear of Denmark.” DeBryn agreed, drawing the sheet back across Kingsley’s pale face. “This man was made to look as if he died in the manner of King Hamlet from the great Bard’s famed tragedy.”

“So he was poisoned then?” Morse clarified, recalling the injection site on the back of the neck.

“Indeed.” the doctor fetched his clipboard from the counter, consulting his papers. “Lethal tetrodotoxin poisoning. Not found in snakes so far as I’m aware, but still of the biological nature. Highly toxic. Injection is the most fatal means by which it can be administered.”

Morse swore he heard Thursday mutter something that sounded like “Sick bastard.”

“He also may not be the first,” said DeBryn morosely, uncovering the body Morse saw him attending to earlier. “Allow me to introduce you to Petra Coates, former student at Lady Matilda’s.”

She was a beautiful young woman, dark hair cut in a severe line at her forehead and jaw which was an astonishing contrast to her milky white skin. Her eyelashes were extremely light which made Morse tilt his head curiously.

“I had to wash the makeup off before her parents arrived for the identification this morning.” DeBryn placed his hands on the corners of the table, leaning against it slightly. “I’m sure Sergeant Jakes will be able to fetch you the photos from the report as it was his case. She was found on the green just outside of the Radcliffe library in the early hours of the morning. She’d come back from a party which would have explained the frankly absurd amount of facial artistry and perhaps, I thought earlier, the injection mark in the crook of her elbow. The preliminary report will say drug overdose but when I remembered I saw these after finding them on Kingsley-” he pulled part of the sheet back just enough to reveal her left arm, an injection site in her elbow, and two red puncture marks identical to the ones in the man’s ear.

“There’s another one on her breast,” DeBryn added, folding the sheet back to cover the arm. “But for her modesty I implore that you take my word for it.”

It was easy to consent to that.

“Due to the similar markings I ran her toxicology report along with his, I hadn’t the chance earlier since the parents arrived so quickly, and she came up positive for signs of tetrodotoxin poisoning.” picking up his tweezers once again, he looked between both of them grimly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I found a coin under her tongue as well.”

Sure enough, a coin was removed from Petra Coates’s mouth, placed next to the other. It was another two pence piece with the same letters stamped into it, ‘AB’.

“Her parents saw her only just the morning before when she stopped by for a visit.” the pathologist informed them. “When they saw her they hardly recognized her, I’m afraid. Petra is blonde and her hair was not in this fashion the morning of her death. Sergeant Jakes was able to tell me that the same reaction was found with her friends. She did not look like this even in the two hours before she was killed.”

“He dyed her hair,” Thursday said in a low voice so dangerous that made Morse wish he wasn’t standing so close. “cut it…poisoned her…and put a coin under her tongue. What are these, his initials? Is he marking them like stags?”

But Morse was on a different track of mind, one which felt like it had a train on it, rushing toward him, collision imminent, and yet he was frozen in place, petrified, immobile, unable to part from the horrid truth. A wave of nausea swept over him and he held the side of his hand to his mouth, closing his eyes and counting evenly in his head, waiting for it to pass.

“Morse?” Thursday’s voice came from his left, softer and concerned, a warm and reassuring hand at his back. “All right, there?”

He nodded and opened his eyes, avoiding the faces of the dead. “In _Antony and Cleopatra_ , Cleopatra kills herself by applying a snake to her breast and another to her arm. The haircut, the makeup, both a romantic interpretation of her image.” realization didn’t so much as dawn on him as eclipse any other form of thought. “Cleopatra. _Petra_. King Hamlet. _Kingsley_.”

“ _Christ_ ,” Thursday swore, taking a step back.

“I think the letters on the coins might be representative of the format of Shakespeare’s sonnets.” Morse closed his eye again, fisting his hands in his hair as a record played in his mind and he stood alone on a rooftop with tears in his eyes, keeping the darkness at bay with sheer force of will. The dark eyes of Mason Gull permeated the already insecure environment of his head, crinkled at the edges in laughter. Mason Gull who, he was told by Bright, died in Broadmoor from a self administered overdose a week before Morse was released from prison. “ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Two deaths by poison and or snakes. AB, AB.”

_Evelyn, Grace, Ben, Daniel, Fred._

_EGBDF._

_Petra and Kingsley._

_ABAB._

“He’s not finished,” Morse said, voice barely recognizable to himself. “This is only the beginning of his sonnet.”

“Thank you for your time, doctor.” said Thursday curtly, pulling Morse from the mortuary as quick as he could.

The spectre of Mason Gull was not far behind. 


	2. Siren Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I’ve never been to Broadmoor Hospital and all the descriptions come from images on the internet so what I’ve written won’t be entirely accurate because there’s no way for me to ensure that it is. I wanted to include more information about the inner workings of the hospital but all of it is modern and I’m a stickler for (historical or general) accuracy so I did what I could, aka the bare minimum. 
> 
> Warning for mentions of suicide and self harm
> 
> This chapter isn’t incredibly action packed but is more of a means to an end and has needed information for the story/plot. Don’t worry, we’re getting there.

It rained while they were in the morgue.

The lateness of the afternoon and the condensed cloud cover gave the world a tired, dull appearance like an old coin passed from pocket to pocket as opposed to the untarnished ones found on the bodies. A newfound chill was in the air, however, despite the now melted snow and dwindling icicles. And it didn’t entirely have to do with the spring climate.

“It’s not Gull,” Thursday said firmly, hands clasped on the wheel. “It can’t be.”

He insisted on driving after taking one look at Morse, lips pressed tight, hiding tremors by making himself as rigid as possible. Thursday was able to manoeuver him into the passenger seat and find the keys in his coat. The silence was unnerving and only broken by the humming of the engine catching as they headed back to the station. Morse wasn’t buckled and Thursday didn’t feel inclined to reach over him and remedy it, not wanting to intrude in his sensitive state. His pale skin was impossibly whiter, giving him an almost spectral appearance not unlike the pallor of the two bodies in the mortuary.

A brief image of Morse, dead on an autopsy table, chest stitched together, flashed through his mind, and the car jerked as he momentarily lost focus on his steering.

The jolt, however, was enough to pull the young detective constable from his winding river of thoughts. Thursday wasn’t surprised he hadn’t lost his way in them the way he’d seen many a good man do. Morse was always on the brink, treading along the precipice, a small push just enough to do him in.

Thursday had been in when they got the call from Broadmoor Hospital. Bright beckoned him into his office and shared the news with him, casual as you like, as if they were discussing a turn in the weather and not the suicide of a serial killer that had selected Morse as the unwitting witness to his madness. It wasn’t cause for celebration, it certainly was no occasion to mourn, it just simply was. Mason Gull was dead. He was his final victim. His imagined biography perished with him.

Mason Gull died but the idea of a man cannot be killed as easily as one.

Morse’s shaken demeanor gave testament to that.

“No one at Cowley ever saw the body.” were the first words from his lips since they left Dr. DeBryn. Morse was correct; Mason Gull was cremated per the instructions in his living will. His ashes were buried in place of a coffin.

“What are you thinking?” Thursday glanced over to him, brow furrowed in concern and curiosity. “Penny for them.”

Morse clasped his hands together in his lap in a faux appearance of collectiveness, trying not to fidget anxiously. “I’m thinking that death is the perfect alibi. It’s entirely possible that Gull could have faked his death and escaped to commit these crimes.”

“Don’t you think the orderlies would have noticed if it wasn’t him?” Thursday tested, keeping his voice placating.

“I-” Morse squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them looked as if he were on the verge of tears, his irises transformed into oceans of confusion and frustration and pure, undiluted, turmoil. “I just can’t be rid of him. It’s like trying to wash blood off your hands that isn’t there. It’s a stench, a- a _stain_ that won’t go away. He took what was beautiful and twisted it into something macabre. I see that here and I see him. Death doesn’t seem permanent enough for that. Not to me.”

“Morse…” They stopped at a signal and Thursday turned to face him properly, stern enough to try and drive the words into his head. “Odds are that it’s just another lunatic hung up on the arts. Don’t bring back the dead. They’re not good company with the living.”

Perhaps he was wrong but he swore he saw Morse shift his hand to take the pulse of his own left wrist. As if he had doubts as to his own state of being.

That did it.

It was a right to the station but Thursday went straight, causing a horn to blare at him in irritation.

“Sir, we’re-”

“-taking a detour.” the inspector interrupted. “Are you up for an hour drive to Broadmoor?”

“But…why?”

“Because I’d like you to get some sleep for once and knowing you, this is going to keep you up until you know for sure.” Thursday adjusted his hat. “I’ll find a phone and call the station to let them know we’re going out there to acquire some autopsy records. They’ll understand.”

Grateful was a rare look on Morse. He bowed his head and barely concealed the small, relieved smile.

Fog began rolling across the cobblestone street and the black Jaguar barreled full steam ahead into its midst.

————

Thursday expected- no, hoped- that Morse would catch some shut eye on the way to the hospital seeing as it was all the way in Crowthorne, but that was not the case. He remained as alert and fretful as ever, no doubt running through the worst possible outcomes of their visit, eyes pinched with anxiety. He found himself silently wondering how many times Mason Gull made an appearance behind those eyes in the middle of the night, trespassing into a dream, herald to a nightmare, and felt burning regret at not having pitched the bastard off the roof of the college those years ago.

Morse seemed to draw a mask over his face once the rolling greens and grays of the mist covered countryside was replaced by the towering walls of the psychiatric hospital, red stone cutting through the thickness of the air and guiding them to an entrance. The immediate weather concealed much of the grounds, the large facility nestled away in the dense clouds just as the mask hid the young constable’s turmoil, giving the appearance of a calm and collected young man ready to stroll into any type of fray and not lose his head in the process. It was enough to convince anybody that didn’t know him.

A small group of guards escorted them inside the large Victorian complex, the insides as sterile white as any hospital ward.

“Don’t let ‘em give you anything unless someone gives permission,” a head of security stood back with folded arms as they were being searched. The warning came as a surprise to Morse who hadn’t realized that up until that point he hardly even remembered leaving the car. Everything was a blur when he was lost in thought, finally snapping out of it. He wasn’t in the car. He was in one of the most secure buildings in Britain. The place Mason Gull had been locked away in for close to two years.

Morse’s pen and notepad solicited a suspicious look from one guard who waved them in front of his face in a chastising manner and tossed them into a plastic bin along with Thursday’s pipe, hat, and tobacco set to be retrieved when they departed. It took some convincing from Thursday in order to keep their warrant cards on their person.

“The orderlies should keep ‘em at a safe distance but please avoid any unsupervised form of bodily contact with the patients here.” the man continued. “That includes, and is not limited to, mind, handshakes, embraces, and physical violence. Inspector Thursday and DC Morse, an orderly should be coming along to escort you along with Northcott,” a guard nodded his head. “Hope you find what you came ‘ere for.”

With that he turned on his heel and strode way with the remainder of the guards, Northcott staying behind. He was a younger looking man, only a few years Morse’s senior, dressed in black slacks and a dress shirt, badge pinned to his trouser pocket with a clip.

He scratched his dark beard and peered down the white hallway, face softening as footsteps became heard. Northcott turned back to the two men and gave a polite nod, speaking in a brogueish voice. “Name’s Northcott but North’s fine. This here’s Clive Barton, been working here for forty odd years. He probably knows this place better than his own home.”

“Don’t let your aunt hear you say that, Andy, or she’ll be hounding me to retire!” The source of the footsteps appeared and turned out to be an aged, balding, grandfatherly gentleman with a pale blue cardigan buttoned over his dress shirt and metal rimmed spectacles, an identical badge to North’s on his trousers as well.

He looked spectacularly kind, a large contrast to Morse’s satirical image of a cross, marm-type woman sharply dragging them through the asylum.

“Pleasure to meet you gentlemen,” Clive smiled, shaking their hands in turn. “I suppose you’d like to make this a short trip so let’s not waste any more of your time. I assume you now know my nephew, Mr. Northcott. Andy, if you’d be so kind as to lead the way to the records office?”

North obliged and the three followed, Morse between Clive and Thursday as they walked side by side. It felt awkward but secure.

“I understand you’re here about Mason Gull, yes?” Clive asked, wrinkled brow growing even more creased. “The suicide?”

“That’s right,” Thursday replied before Morse could even think to. “Just crossing our t’s, that sort of thing. Routine investigation.”

Clive laughed, hand over his stomach. “Nothing routine about this, I’ll tell you that much. I knew him well, as well as you can know a patient, I suppose. Gull was in a ward with a six person unlock when he first got here. Six people just for him to get out of his cell.” He held up six fingers to accentuate this. “Overdosed on his medication, he did. It was all rather ingenious if I do say so myself. He was allowed shifts in the kitchen and nicked sandwich bags to put down his throat, tied them to his back teeth with dental floss so he could bring them back up. Eventually he collected enough to off himself. Didn’t seem the type though. Suppose it’s not the sort of thing you always see.”

“So six people found the body?” Thursday inquired as they rounded a corner. North greeted a passing guard.

“Oh heavens no. About two, I’d say.” Clive shook his head and the brief assurance Morse experienced proved to be as fleeting as all hope typically was, brushing his fingers and slipping away. “He was moved to a medium dependency ward nearly six months ago. Gull wasn’t violent so we didn’t need to keep him in the intensive rooms. He demonstrated enough good behaviour and no ill intentions toward any faculty or patients and the space was needed for more aggressive arrivals.”

“You didn’t consider Mason Gull a flight risk?” Morse felt incredulous and he stopped to stare at Clive. “Even though he murdered five people?”

“I’m aware of the severity of his crimes, Mr…”

“Morse. DC Morse.”

“Morse.” Clive stopped walking now. The quartet stood in the middle of the corridor. The older man looked interested as he peered at Morse, making his skin crawl. “Yes, he spoke of you often at first. I thought perhaps you were a friend by what he would say. I didn’t assume you’d be a policeman.”

“Why would you think a psychopath like that would have friends?” the last word felt bitter in his mouth as he imagined Gull with an equally deranged cohort. The unspoken question was What would he possibly say about me?

“Because he had them.” Clive said matter-of-factly, starting to walk again. “He was very charismatic. Oh, I’m sure it was a facade due to his condition, but unfortunately there are patients here with meeker and smaller personalities that were won over by the slightest show of favor. We try to keep that from happening, but overlap happens. As such a senior staff member I was part of the small team that assessed his fitness to plead when his case finally went to court. I was a psychiatrist before I let my license expire. He displayed severe deviations in cognition and affectivity, trademark signs of a personality disorder.” He fixed his eyes on Morse, blue against blue, wrinkled to exhausted. “Mason Gull was a tiger in a cage here at Broadmoor. Dangerous, yes, as one is by nature. Dangerous but docile. When I say friends I only mean a few, but if you want to speak to the closest one I’m sure James shouldn’t be too hard to find. He started self harming again when Mason died and we’ve had to keep him in a high dependency ward for close observation. Ah, here we are.”

The door was a light blue as were all the others, but it had a wire mesh glass window stenciled with the word ‘records’. North selected a key from the ring in his pocket and unlocked the door, standing aside to let them enter before him.

Rain hammered at the glass facing the outside and the faint rumble of thunder could be heard. Morse was grateful they’d gotten indoors when they had.

It didn’t take Clive long to find Gull’s file in the alphabetised cabinets and he held it open, scanning the contents. “So what exactly are you here for? His autopsy information?”

Morse nodded, heart in his throat. “That and any photos that may have been taken at the scene and after the autopsy.”

“I’m not going to ask why because I don’t expect an answer.” Clive nodded, picking through the papers.

“Wise.” said Thursday.

“Mason Francis Gull, aged thirty-eight…” his brow furrowed and he paused his reading. “Dark brown hair?”

Thursday all but tore the file from his hands, Clive staring at the space it once occupied, lips moving silently. Papers shuffled. He caught a glimpse of a photograph stamped with the name ‘Gull, Mason’.

“Let me see him.” Morse found himself saying, unaware the words had formed on his lips until he heard them. They were desperate, almost keening, ice spreading through his veins as quick as the raindrops trailing down the glass. “Sir, is it-”

“Who is this?” Thursday thrust the papers at Clive who took an unsteady step backwards, almost propelled away by the force of the thundering voice.

Before North could step in or Clive take them, Morse seized the papers and turned away, the photo staring up at him.

It was not the face of Mason Gull sealed in death, but a dark haired, round faced, younger man. Nothing like the portrait clipped to the front of the file featuring Gull’s face. Thinner, gaunt, and with light hair.

The papers fluttered to the ground.

Clive caught the photograph as Thursday caught Morse who began to sway, spots dancing in front of his eyes, a vignette look cast across his vision.

“Oh my God,” Clive sounded choked, his hand shaking as he gave the paper to his nephew. “Andrew, _it’s John_.”

“This has to be some mistake with paperwork, or-” Thursday began, searching blindly for an alternative answer, but Morse’s head was already spinning.

_“You think it’s the end? This is where it starts.”_

_Gull was alive._

“John Bridges never showed up to work the day after Gull died.” North explained, gathering the papers up and returning them to Thursday. “He’s been missing since then. This… this makes sense.”

“The coroner wouldn’t have known it wasn’t Gull? Or that it was Bridges?”

“Not much contact with the living, sir. And it’s rare we even have deaths here, I think they called one from the nearest town hospital.” the guard shook his head.

“You said he had a friend. James.” Morse surprised himself with his practicality. The dread coiled around his bones was beginning to wither away in place of a kind of determination that tested steel. “I’d like to speak to him. See if he knows anything.”

If he treated this like any other case, if he removed the personal aspect, the morbid attachment Gull had to him, then perhaps only then he had a chance at playing the game and winning once again. Could it be that Gull counted on him going yellow and backing out? If so, and even not, it wouldn’t be. Not if Morse had a hand in it.

_This is where it starts._

————

James refused to speak to anyone other than Morse. Clive phoned the ward to set up a meeting and conveyed the names of the policemen present. The patient consented to see them, but only Morse. It seemed that Gull had told James about him.

Clive ushered Morse into a small visiting room with a white wooden table and two sets of chairs. The fluorescent lighting combatted the dark and stormy atmosphere beyond the window, the whistling of the stormy gale matching the pitch of the radiator under the sill. For all intents and purposes it felt very similar to an interrogation back at the station and Morse finally had a modicum of control since he set foot inside of Broadmoor.

He thought James would be a sneering, self confident man, a mirror of Gull. Not a wiry thin lad with bandages up to his left elbow, a softcover book tucked against his body with his uninjured arm. His cable knit sweater was at least two sizes too big.

“I expected to grow into it.” James said in a startlingly clear voice, celery green eyes alert like an animal in headlights. His hair was almost as pale as his skin. “They said my medication would increase my appetite but it’s only been a few weeks so far. I’m James.”

“Morse.” They sat.

“Can I shake his hand?” James looked to Clive who was closing the door, leaving North, Thursday, and the guard that brought James waiting outside. The feet of his chair made an irritating sound against the floor as he moved it closer to the table. “I think I’d like to.”

“Mr. Morse, are you comfortable with that?” Clive inquired from his post at the door, pulling a chair toward him so he could sit as well, massaging his knees as he did so.

Morse couldn’t see any immediate harm in it. “I don’t see why not.”

James smiled politely and extended his slim hand, shaking Morse’s. “Pleased to meet you. You’re here about Mason, right?”

He had a ill concealed nervous energy which made Morse wonder what exactly was bothering him. He was there of his own volition. “Did you know that he faked his death in order to escape?”

James bit his upper lip, looking down at his book before answering. “Yes.”

“James.” Clive sighed, looking at him with disappointment. “What have you done, lad?”

“I can’t say.” James shook his head vigorously, eyes widening. “He said he’d find out if I told, said he’d hurt my sister. Said the walls have ears.”

“But I’m with the police, James,” Morse tried to go for an assuring tone. “We can keep your sister safe from him. I promise you.”

“He said you’d say that.”

“Did he say that I was one of the people who caught him the first time?”

The man was silent for a moment. “He said you were his equal. Not his enemy.”

Morse pressed his mouth shut to avoid scoffing at him. “You can trust me, James. Mason is a liar. He’s dangerous. You can help us keep him from hurting anyone else, including your sister. All you have to do is tell me what you know.”

James looked at Clive who gave an encouraging nod before removing his glasses and wiping his brow. It was uncomfortably warm with the radiator working a bit more than it should have, but Morse didn’t want to meddle with it.

“Mr. Bridges was in on it.” James spoke quietly, hunching his shoulders. “He was an addict. Gull traded his meds to him for tranquilizers and then threatened to report him and get Bridges sacked if he didn’t help with the escape. I think he needed the job for his family. The plan was to dose himself enough to slow his breathing and heart so when they found him dead during wake-up, any witnesses would see just that. Bridges would volunteer to take the body and get him out somehow. But he made sure to do it during the siren test in case he was discovered to give a delay.”

“Siren test?” Morse repeated, furrowing his brow.

“The Broadmoor Sirens.” Clive supplied helpfully. “They’re meant to alert the locals in case of an escape. We test them every Monday at ten in the morning for about two minutes.”

James’ shoulder twitched. “Mason must’ve killed Bridges somehow on the way to the coroner’s vehicle and switched places with him. Didn’t you lot have maintenance for the cameras that week? Mr. Bridges said so.”

Clive muttered something that sounded like “Fucking hell, John.”

“So you knew he intended to kill someone?” Morse felt repulsed and he was sure it reflected in his face because James hung his head shamefully.

“I just didn’t want him to hurt my sister.” He said meekly. “He said ‘Don’t tell them anything. And if Morse comes, give him the book for me.’”

“That book?” Morse gestured to the one he had cradled against his side.

James slid a battered pocket sized copy of the Oxford English Dictionary to him. “You have to take it or my sister gets killed. Go on. It’s yours.” His voice was becoming strained. “Solve the puzzle and you’ll know who dies. We’re all just pawns, Mr, Morse. God’s gone so Gull is playing his game.”

He stood and knocked on the window in the door, the guard outside allowing him to exit. Morse made no move to get up and neither did Clive.

“He seems so…” Morse searched for a polite word.

“Weak?” Clive said bluntly. “Normally, yes. He’s prone to fits of uncontrollable anger. Attacked his father with a kitchen knife. Many of the people here are victims of their own kind. Victims to their illness.”

“Mason Gull is no victim.” Morse replied stonily, pushing his chair back and preparing to open the door.

Clive stood and rested a solid hand on his shoulder. “You misunderstand. I said many, not all. There are those who are victims and there are those who are not. Guilt makes you human. The amount of control you yourself have over your actions determines what side you’re on. Mason has no guilt. He has too much control. He’s not a victim. Not like James Coates is.”

_Coates._

“No.” Morse threw the door open, startling Thursday and North.

“Pardon?” Clive followed him out as he walked rapidly down the hall to where James was being led away.

“Not you, sorry,” Morse waved his hand dismissively, picking up his pace. His footsteps sounded off the walls. “James! James, wait!”

James and the guard turned around and Morse stopped, standing a few steps away.

“Your sister,” Morse held his hand out as if he could grasp the information. “What’s her name?”

He looked relieved bony shoulders slumping. “Petra. Petra Coates. Protect her, will you?”

The guard pulled him away and Morse found Thursday standing just behind himself, close enough to have heard.

_Guilt makes you human._

It felt like a stone in his stomach. Guilt over someone who never had a chance. She was dead the moment Gull even entertained the idea. 

“Bastard.” Thursday cursed.

It wasn’t a game. It was controlled chaos. 


	3. Kronos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been ages since I've updated! Life's been a bit busy as of late but I'm hoping to be able to snag more time for writing because I really do want to create this story and carry on it to the end. But this is only chapter three and there's loads more to come, so stay tuned! Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated and I hope you enjoy this chapter, the final threshold before Morse steps unto the metaphorical breach once again and Gull becomes more visible in the next update. No more chasing shadows, because, after all, you can't really see them when surrounded with darkness.

Bright went through three cigarettes by the time Morse and Thursday had effectively refreshed his memory on Mason Gull and drew the connections to the murders of Petra Coates and Robert Kingsley Sr. Thursday left it to his bagman to explain their excursion out to Broadmoor and what they had learned from James Coates, Clive, and Northcott about Gull’s escape and the involvement of the orderly, John Bridges. 

Three cigarettes. Pipes seemed more mature, something he would’ve expected from a Chief Superintendent, but from where Morse stood Bright was going through the  lights rather peckishly, the third having dwindled to a crumbling stub pinched between his bony fingers. This wasn’t leisure or vice. This was nerves.

“It was an inside job then, was it?” Bright ground the cigarette into the ashtray and Morse watched the tobacco smoke curl up, trying to gain substance by grasping the air. 

“Yes, sir,” Morse cleared his throat, and Thursday gave an assenting nod. 

“And this book,” he waved his hand about, gesturing for something he had yet to be presented with. “May I see it?”

“Of course, sir.” Morse felt relieved to be unburdened with it, as if it had been burning a hole in his pocket. As a gift from Gull, though, suspicion of combustion wouldn’t be terribly outlandish. He had ample time to review the small dictionary on the drive back to Oxford and found nothing extraordinary about it. No dog eared pages or circled words or markings, save for the initials W.C.M written neatly in the top corner of the cover. Published by the Oxford University Press in 1964. 

One thing that struck a nerve was the few newspaper clippings placed in the front of the book. A headline that proclaimed “ **Cuckoo in Cowley: Detective for Murder of Chief Constable?** ”. All words except for ‘Detective Constable Endeavour Morse’, ‘murder’, and ‘strangled’ were blacked out. There was Dorothea Frazil’s attempt to exonerate him with “ **Innocent Until Proven Guilty: Frame-Up in the Force!** ” detailing the process in which the evidence linking Morse to the crime was becoming more fragile by the minute as Cowley CID dove into investigating ACC Clive Deare’s involvement. Morse had his appeal shortly after and described him leaving his scarf in Deare’s vehicle accidentally, how he’d been tricked into becoming his confidante and was played in the end. 

Finally, “ **A Good Man Goes Free** ”. 

These clippings fell onto the desk and the chief superintendent’s expression soured even further as if he’d been sucking on lemons the past ten minutes and not rolls of tobacco. 

“It may be some form of a clue or riddle,” Thursday elaborated as Bright flipped through the pages of the book, handing it back to Morse when he found nothing satisfactory. “Like the kind he left last time.”

_ The kind he left for  _ me, Morse thought. 

“All of this is premeditated to the highest extent,” Morse thumbed the edges of the book. Then, noticing his fidgeting, he put his hands behind his back, holding the dictionary between them. “Gull must have purchased the book during one of the rare occasions that the patients are able to put in order requests. It looks to be second hand, I don’t see him using it enough for it to be scuffed like this, but the ink isn’t very old. He put those letters there for us to find. He gave it to James Coates, confided in him, coerced him, promised he wouldn’t kill his sister, but she was the first victim. He’s had years to plan and it’s been a month since his escape before he even acted. He has got quite a running start on us and I wouldn’t be surprised if our search for the Lane tenant comes up dry.”

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Sergeant Jakes rapped his knuckles on the doorframe before entering. Morse didn’t question how long he’d been standing in the dim hall or how much he had heard. Despite hostility in the past, he was an ally. Something he needed in this time. “Just got off the blower with the Lanes, turns out their tenant always paid in cash and was perfectly nice and quiet. Lit out to work at odd hours and sometimes wouldn’t return for days on end. They haven’t got a name of the firm he works for but there won’t be one.”

“How certain are you?” asked Thursday. “We’ll need to be sure.”

Jakes arched an eyebrow. “I’m certain that the name ‘Jason Mull’ is as false as my uncle Cliff’s knee if that’s good enough for you.” 

“Cheeky bugger,” Thursday said just loud enough to be heard. Whether it was about Gull or Jakes was undetermined. Then, turning to Bright, “He specially instructed Coates to give the book to Morse. And those newspaper clippings- sir, I think he means to come after him.”

Morse almost reached for his left side, remembering the silvery pale scar drawn just under his ribs from the last time Gull “came after” him. 

“Well he’s got to go through us then, now hasn’t he?” Jakes stuck his hands in his pockets, straightening his shoulders. “Us three, Strange, the whole bloody nick.” 

Morse, taken aback, looked to face him and Jakes quickly turned away, not meeting his eyes, stubbornly refusing to admit that he didn’t dislike him as much as he put on. 

“Your sentiment is appreciated, Sergeant Jakes,” Bright nodded, pleased as if this sudden rise in sportsmanship was of his own doing and not the test of time and sharing of wars. “And he’s right, Morse. You’re safe with us. Thursday, I’ll see to it that you’re issued a new firearm, and same with you.” He gestured to Morse with his head. “A security detail could be arranged if-”

“No thank you.” Morse interrupted. “Sir.” he added hastily. This drew stares from the other three and he bit his lower lip. “It would draw his attention. Show that we’re worried or scared. He may grow more brazen if he thinks he can rattle us so easily. I’d like to politely decline the offer.”

“Now, look here, Morse-” Thursday paused, sounding too aggressive for his own ears. He sighed. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

No. “Yes.”

“You could kip at my place, I’m sure Mrs. Thursday-” he persisted. 

Morse shook his head forcefully, mortified at the idea. “And put your family in danger? No, this is me, he’s after  _ me.  _ Your children almost lost a father last time, I couldn’t bear it if the same risks came about again. Let’s just…” he took a breath to steady himself. “Let’s just focus on finding him before he hurts anyone else.”

Thursday’s shoulders slumped in resignation, knowing well enough that his Morse’s stubbornness was a force of its own. 

“I think it’s about time to call it a day, as it were,” Bright broke the brief silence with his reedy voice. “We’ll regroup in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Jakes exited the office and Thursday followed close behind. 

“Oh, and Morse?” Bright called out just as the detective reached the doorway. Morse turned to face him, watching as his shaking fingers picked another cigarette from its case. His expression seemed almost apologetic. “Take a look through that book of yours if you wouldn’t mind. The clues. See if there’s anything of use to us.”

“Of course, sir.” Morse nodded politely and excused himself from the room, feeling as if he’d been tasked with something akin to reaching his hand into a beehive for honey and praying to not get stung. 

 

———

 

Thursday dropped him at his place and bid him a solemn goodnight, rather than the other way around. He suspected it was because Thursday wanted to keep an eye on him as long as he could since he refused further offers of a security presence. 

“See you in the morning, then?” said Thursday, attempting to sound casual but not doing well at masquerading the fact that he was watching every passerby on the sidewalk with utmost suspicion. 

“I’ll be sure to pick you up,” Morse nodded, buttoning his coat up.

“Oh, there’s no need for that, I’ll get the car.” he said much too quickly. Then, more relaxed, “Bit of a walk in the morning might do me some good.”

Morse supposed that it would simply be better if he humoured Thursday rather than calling him out on the weak excuse. “All right. Have a goodnight, sir.”

Thursday was a tad taken aback, clearly expecting Morse to put up a bigger fight on the matter. “Goodnight, Morse. Take care.”

He set off down the front walk, fishing his keys out of his trouser pocket. Morse could hear the engine humming beside the curb even after he closed the door to the foyer of the tenements. Idling, making sure he got indoors safely. As if Mason Gull would debase himself to crouching in shrubbery, waiting to attack Morse outside of his own flat. 

He had to scoff at the thought.

After the flights of stairs he had to climb he was at his flat, fitting his key into the near ancient lock and entering the frigid apartment. 

The place had become foreign to him after the last few months of knowing only the smaller four walls of his prison cell.  It wasn’t as if his humble lodgings missed him, though. The landlady had come up to tidy things now and then, perhaps in hopes of finding a tenant that wouldn’t go three months without paying due to wrongful incarceration. She welcomed him back cordially, but didn’t even offer a polite smile until her fingers closed around the cheque. 

His mind inevitably wandered to Monica and he felt a twinge of emotion as he thought of her flat across the way from his. Not a single word had been shared between them since his return from the cabin he retreated to and she didn’t deserve that, but he could think of nothing to say. Someday there would be a chance. An awkward greeting as they met in the hall. A run it at the hospital. He doubted, however, that they could salvage much from the ash heap they created, all hopeful embers snuffed out.

It would be a lie if he said he didn’t miss her. The hollow ache fit somewhere in his chest but spread all over. It was a familiar feeling that he’d learned to recognize over the years. Maybe he’d learn to avoid it, in time. Until then, there was music and brandy in lieu of bandages and stitches. 

The records remained untouched on the side table, neglected, silent, and Morse found himself stepping towards them, running his fingers down their thin spines, re-familiarizing himself with the feel of them. 

An image suddenly assaulted him as he approached  _ Otello _ . Evelyn Balfour’s corpse displayed in the train car stood clear in his memory, her eyes wide open with horror, frozen in death, the blood red handkerchief spilling from her lips.

Time would always buckle before the power of memories, Kronos outmatched by an enemy that faded, vanished, and appeared without warning, summoned without prompting, easy to lose but nearly impossible to banish. 

Every record was tainted in that moment, screaming at him with renewed fervor, peppering him with the deaths brought about by Gull. The classics books he’d salvaged from his old home now bore the stolen lives of Robert Kingsley and Petra Coates. Warped parodies of the things Morse sought solace with threatened to suffocate him and he made a weak, strangled sound as the damask papered walls seemed to close in on him. Before he knew it, he was out of the door, rushing down the stairs, and bursting out the front door and into the cool air of the night. 

There must be somewhere he could go, some sort of haven or refuge, he though, celery green eyes darting this way and that as he attempted to pick out a cab from the slow tide of cars making their way down the road. His breathing was coming far too quickly and he tried to settle it the way he learned how to back in university. 

University… where did he go when this sort of thing happened? When he was overwhelmed but couldn’t say?

Looking back to the road, Morse saw one vehicle break away from the current and sidle up near him. 

The driver’s window came down and the friendly face of Dorothea Frazil looked back at him, lips spread in a motherly grin. The engine puttered to a halt. “Morse! I thought I’d come by to see how you were, but I didn’t expect you to be waiting at the curb like this.”

“How did you get my address?” was all he could think to say in response, feeling a bit cagey at this unexpected confrontation.

She cocked her head to the side in a  _ come, now  _ kind of way. “Inspector Thursday gave it to me, of course. Took a bit of wheedling mind, I had to explain I only had your best interests at heart.”

“And do you?” Morse took a wary step towards the car, stooping down to attempt to read the face framed by wavy hair. Had he seen pity, he would have turned his cheek to her, pride not allowing him to accept that. But there was no pity. He should know better than that with her. 

“I’m a bit hurt you even have to ask that.” Dorothea responded, forcing a small smile. “Look, can I walk you back inside? Fix us a cuppa? It might do you good if we had a talk.”

“It might.” he agreed, hands migrating to his pockets. The dictionary was still there, alongside his notepad and pen. “But not today, Miss Frazil. I’ve no right to,  but could I ask a favor?” 

Now there was a real smile playing across her face. “Normally I’d say ‘tit for tat’, but I suppose I’m feeling charitable. In you get, Morse.” 

“Thank you,” Morse said gratefully, skirting around the hood of the car and waiting for a vehicle to pass before opening the passenger door and taking a seat. The interior of the vehicle smelled of floral perfume and peppermints and he spotted a small stash of wrappers invading the ashtray just below the console. 

“Mint?” she offered. “I’ve been trying to kick smoking as of late. Probably won’t get anywhere with it but one can try.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” Morse politely declined, scratching his neck. 

“Where to, then?” Frazil raised an eyebrow, rolling her window back up and cutting off the torrent of cold air. “Not work, I hope.”

He snorted. “In a sense. The library at Lonsdale College should do just fine, if you would.”

“Lonsdale,” she hummed, switching the key in the ignition. “Your old stomping ground, I presume. Feeling nostalgic, are we?”

Morse shook his head. “I’m just hoping it will help.”

“Help you or help a case?” 

Somehow she always knew the right questions. Part of the journalist mindset, he supposed. Came with the territory.

“A bit of both, I hope.” Morse said candidly, ducking his head to stare at his lap.

Frazil took that as a cue to cease any prying and they set off down the road, heading toward the college. 

 

———

 

The Lonsdale College library was as much of a home to him as his lodgings were when Morse was at university. He spent majority of his days holed up with his books and papers, working tirelessly towards his degree. Other times it became a safe haven for him when he needed space but didn’t want to be entirely alone, when he needed to think clearly, or when the taunts from peers became too much. 

It had been several years since he even set foot within the place. He visited the neighboring Bodleian briefly during the first Gull case and he shuddered inwardly, remembering the painful chase that ensued beneath the building. 

“I hope you’ll take me up on that cup of tea someday,” Frazil set a hand on his shoulder, smiling warmly. “See you later, then.”

“I will,” Morse nodded, smiling in return. “Have a good night, Miss Frazil.”

“You as well.” 

She drove off, not watching after him like Thursday had. 

It was getting to be late, the gray clouds becoming even darker with the passing of time. The lamps along the path were lit and chattering students walked in pairs or groups, mostly leaving the building rather than entering it. The Lonsdale library was known to be open a bit later than others and Morse took advantage of this, holding the door for a few students before entering after them. 

The large space was filled with shelves that reached ambitiously toward the ceiling, each one interrupted with sets of tables and chairs for students to study at. At least half of them were taken up, their occupants ranging from feverishly flipping pages to dozing with a copy of  _ Don Quixote _ as a pillow. 

The golden ambiance washed over him like a comforting blanket and for the first time since he left his flat he felt as if he could breathe properly. The college had its own uncomfortable memories but they were gone from his mind tonight. They couldn’t touch this space. He could use this as an opportunity to work on Gull’s puzzle. 

“Can I help you, sir?” 

Morse turned around and was met by an aged librarian that had the same general appearance as Clive Barton from the cardigan to his kind eyes. 

“Oxford City Police,” Morse presented his warrant card and the man reached for the glasses that hung from the chain around his neck and brought them to his face, squinting as he adjusted to the improved vision.  “Detective Constable Morse.”

“Joseph Bradshaw, head librarian.” he folded his arms behind his back and angled his head curiously. “How can I be of service, Constable?” 

“I was wondering if there was any significance to the initials ‘W.C.M’ in relation to the Oxford English Dictionary,” Morse withdrew the book from his coat pocket and held it out to Bradshaw, open to the initials written on the inner cover. A spark ignited in his mind and he added, “With a possible connection to Broadmoor Asylum.” 

Bradshaw accepted the dictionary and adjusted his glasses, murmuring silently to himself. “W.C.M… ah, I see. Strange that it would be relevant in this time.”

“How do you mean?” Morse inquired, interrupting his musings. 

“Well this is an old one,” Bradshaw ambled over to an open table and sat, gesturing for Morse to take the seat opposite him. Morse obeyed and leaned forward with interest, forearms resting on the wood. “Quite a few of us here know this story, it’s rather interesting to be frank. See, there was an army surgeon, an American, mind, by the name of William Chester Minor who came to England around 1870. If I remember correctly, he was prone to indulging in…vices, and was dangerously paranoid. He killed a man and was sent to Broadmoor since they declared him insane. Minor answered a call for volunteers to aid in the creation of this dictionary you have here and became one of the largest contributors.” 

“And this was all while he was in the hospital?” Morse furrowed his brow. “They allowed this…  correspondence of sorts?”

Bradshaw shrugged vaguely. “If memory serves, he used his army pension to purchase books and other commodities. He didn’t prove to be dangerous and displayed good behavior so they allowed it.” 

Much like Mason Gull who beguiled the nurses and worked his way into a lower security ward. Who purchased the book that sat on the table before Morse. 

William Chester Minor was undoubtedly the connection that Gull had implanted but Morse had yet to see the pearl of revelation that would reveal the next victim.

Victim. Oh.

“The name of the man Minor killed,” Morse asked, replacing the book into his pocket. “Is there any chance you know what it was?”

Bradshaw took a moment to think, steepling his fingers. “It must have been…oh, yes, Merrett. George Merrett.”

There it was. Morse ran through the deaths he could think of in Shakespearean canon and came upon  _ Richard III,  _ and the murder of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence. Two assassins hired by his brother, Richard, came to his cell within the castle tower and stabbed him through the heart before drowning him in wine. It was a gruesome and unjust death, as most were.

Petra. Cleopatra.

Kingsley. King Hamlet.

George. It wouldn’t be incredibly difficult to find someone sharing that name.

Petra Coates was placed visibly as an advertisement, but Robert Kingsley Sr had been left in a place accurate to the story. There was a chance that Gull would follow that pattern, which meant that Morse needed to find a tower. It didn’t seem likely that Gull would expect them to find a man in an actual prison, nor would it be easy for him to gain entry. Carfax Tower in the centre of the city did have a good connection to Oxford, being in the heart of it.

But there was, however, a nearby tower that remained as part of Oxford Castle. 

St.  _ George’s  _ Tower. 

It fit.

“Does this have to do with a current case?” Bradshaw inquired, cutting into the haze of thoughts surrounding the policeman.

“I- I’m not at liberty to say, I’m afraid.” Morse said apologetically, quickly rising to his feet. “Thank you so much for your time, Mister Bradshaw. Truly.”

“Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.” Bradshaw offered, but Morse was already rushing to the door, cradling this newfound information with the utmost care. 

There could still be time to save a life, but he was running against a clock that only Gull could see. Each passing second was an epitaph, each minute a grave. 


	4. Antebellum

The sun had long since set, no lingering glow of the dying sun in the distance, sinking into its temporary grave. It was cold, colder than it was earlier, the air sharp with the scent of frost and the bite of wind. Spring, it seemed, still remained exclusive to the daytime, not yet as warm as it would be in the night. With the moon, stars, and evenly spaced, faithful street lamps as his light, Morse attempted to locate the nearest phone booth or police call box to ring for backup.

Usually he preferred to be left to his own devices, taking advantage of the autonomy he often had when chasing leads so thin to others but blindingly obvious to him. However, in this case, solitude was something to be wisely avoided when pursuing Gull or his victims. Going after him without aid would be nothing short of suicide. Gull was toying with Morse, luring him in with his devious puzzles, his grotesque imitations of art, distorting what he knew the detective once held most dear. Once. Now, they weren’t safe to touch. They were tainted, poisoned, laced with death and dread all too fresh to be swept aside.

The fate of George Plantagenet would not leave his mind. Stabbed and drowned in the tower, alone and betrayed. Someone’s son, perhaps someone’s father, husband, or brother, was either dead, dying, or as good as. Because a psychopath decided he should be.

Morse found a telephone in a matter of minutes and called in to the station, dutifully reading off the number on his warrant card. He tapped his foot anxiously on the pavement as he waited to be connected to whoever was on duty. Every rustling from the wind, each passing car drew a wary glance from him. Self preservation was certainly not Morse’s forte, but his senses were piqued, not unlike that of prey aware of a nearby predator.

Predator. What a visceral word. But strangely apt. After all, Morse was being hunted. Him and the other victims, potential ones snug in their beds, sat in front of the telly, going about their mundane evening, all with no idea they were marked for death.

He knew. Not who, but how, and perhaps not soon enough. A blind prophet who could never see the big picture before it was painted.

_“Jakes,”_ the voice on the phone said brusquely, and Morse could clearly envision the man at his desk, sour at having to take a late shift, a cigarette dwindling between his thin fingers.

“It’s Morse,” he replied, holding the dictionary up to the light, his own head casting a shadow over the words. “I think I’ve cracked Gull’s clue in the dictionary. William-”

_“Christ, Morse, I don’t want a bleeding lecture, all right? Just tell me what you need me to do.”_  There was slight irritation in the first words that were seamlessly replaced with righteous determination.

Morse drew in a breath. “I need uniformed officers at Oxford Castle, specifically St. George’s Tower. If Gull isn’t there, he either has been or will be, and it’s likely we could save a life if the latter is true.”

_“There’s a prison on site, we’ll need a warden to let us through.”_ there was a faint sound of paper rustling. _“I’ll give him notice. Should I send for Inspector Thursday?”_

For a moment he entertained the thought, the reassurance of his experience and straight shooting, but quickly dismissed it. Morse knew too well now what it meant to involve Thursday in matters such as this. Last time it was a bullet in his lung. There wasn’t any telling what would happen now. With Gull. No, better leave him safe at home with his family.

“No,” Morse shook his head even though nobody could see the gesture. “Any officer will do.”

Jakes didn’t argue. _“It’s going to be hard to rally the troops at this time of night.”_ was all he said in response.

“Just do what you can,” pled Morse, feeling anxiety nip at his insides. “Send your best man and a gun.” 

_“I’ll make sure he picks you up.”_ Jakes said, oddly leaving his requests uncontested. Somewhere along the way, all these years, their dynamic had shifted. Maybe it was so subtle that it passed him by. So recent that it was swept under all the chaos. _“Where are you now?”_

Morse gave him his location and after a few more words, the line disconnected and he felt, once again, that familiar but dreadful feeling, like a sinner watching the gallows swing. Once again, he was alone.

And in the distance, Mason Gull was beating the war drums for only Morse to hear.

————

A car pulled up after an unknown amount of time had passed. Morse didn’t even bother to check his watch, too lost in thought, his mind feverishly racing through all of the possible outcomes of this evening. He denied himself hope of arresting Gull, of it all going smoothly, because it seemed to utterly unlikely. The man wouldn’t possibly set up a scenario where his clues led to his capture. Not so soon in the chase. Not when he had yet to complete the wicked sonnet. No, Gull would not allow anyone to disrupt his composition.

ABAB. A man named George would be CD. That left three more victims until his finale. The climax, the end, a dark horizon that Gull spent months, years, dreaming of within the confines of his cell. Morse shuddered to think about what gruesome demise was planned. And for whom?

For Morse? 

Was that Gull’s game? Revenge fueled him well enough the first time around, sending him after the family members of those who he believed wronged him. They had only done their civic duty and put a guilty man away. Much like Morse did. Much like all of the Cowley Investigative Department.

But would this sonnet end with Morse dead by his hand? His body assembled in some public place, adorned with the trademarks of whatever Shakespearean death Gull felt was best suited for him? Inspector Thursday, Strange, Jakes, standing over his lifeless self. Thursday, who would be the one to call Monica and his sister, Joyce, to relay the news. After all this torment, the killing without sense, forcing him to bear witness to his craft, he would finally finish him off.

_“I know who you couldn’t save, Morse!”_ those omnipotent words echoed in his mind.

He could still see the victory on his face. Even though he’d been caught, he acted as if he won in some way. It was possible he did. That moment paved the road to where Morse stood now. A road that would follow him until the end of his cord where Gull stood with shears, ready to cut him down. 

If that was the case, he was under Gull’s demented aegis, at least for now. Protected until the moment was right, like a lamb groomed for slaughter. Morse couldn’t die until it became convenient.

He hardly noticed the vehicle, black and silent, no klaxons ringing. But then Sergeant Jakes himself stepped out of the vehicle, looking at Morse expectantly over the top of the Jaguar he signed out from the garage. 

“Are you coming or not?”

Morse frowned. “I didn’t ask for you.”

Even in the dim lighting, Morse could still see his eye twitch as he fought back a sneer. “You said to send my best man with a gun. Well, here he is, and,” he brandished his firearm before tucking it back in its holster. “he’s got one. Beggars can’t and all that, right?”

Morse shook his head and scoffed, but he got into the passenger seat without complaint, Jakes speeding away from the sidewalk before the door could even fully shut. The storefronts flew past, lights blurring, and he ran a traffic light, all without his sirens on.

“Go a little faster, would you?” Morse quipped, but it fell on deaf ears.

After a moment he tried again.

“Why did you come?”

Jakes glanced at him before locking his eyes back on the road. “Told you.” 

“The real reason.” Morse persisted, knowing there was something more to it.

The sergeant’s shoulders slumped and he leaned his head back against the seat. “What happened to you wasn’t right. The whole nick knew you were innocent, even the ones you rubbed the wrong way. We failed you in the beginning. Somebody’s got to make up for it.” 

There was a pause before he added hastily, “A half decent copper is hard to come by. And somebody’s got to keep you out of trouble. Figure that’s where I specialize, shooting down your stark raving ideas.”

Morse didn’t know how to response so he kept mum. Jakes seemed to appreciate that. 

They were no more than a mile away from the castle. Following High Street to Queen, passing through the pedestrian ridden Bonn Square, he watched the world pass them by and felt a morbid sense of disconnection from it. Castle Street. Oxford Castle. Their world would soon be left behind as they stepped onto the grounds, treading into the annals of the underworld. Orpheus in search of a doomed soul.

The warden was less than pleased to have officers traipsing around the place, especially so late in the evening, but allowed their passage, putting the small prison on lockdown for their convenience. After a few questions they were able to discern that a guard by the name of George Ogden came though recently. Along with an unknown individual, also in uniform, claiming to be a trainee.

Morse quickly explained the dictionary’s connection to William Chester Minor who murdered George Merrett, then the story of George Plantagenet and his untimely death in the tower of his brother’s castle. How the clues fit together and brought them to Oxford Castle.

The other man sighed. “I’ll be buggered. Backup shouldn’t be too far behind, I told them to stay discreet.”

Jakes passed Morse a torch, but the two were hardly enough to light their way into the courtyard enclosed by the medieval structures around them. The very brickwork seemed to have an adamant aura surrounding it, whispering its victory against the war of time. Millennia dashed themselves against the tower and adjoining gaol, the castle mound and Round Tower, but could not seem to topple everything. The remnants of a castle, an age long gone.

Shadows performed an unearthly dance across the walls, transforming into abstract and absurd forms as their lights clambered over everything they could touch, purging away mere sections of darkness for the smallest moment.

Morse tried to picture himself coming here alone and suppressed a shudder, suddenly grateful for Jakes’ presence.

“We should’ve brought someone to open the tower,” spoke Jakes quietly, keeping his voice at an unalarming volume. “A set of keys would have been nice. Kicking down the door sort of ruins the element of surprise, wouldn’t you say?”

Morse shook his head even though Jakes couldn’t see it. “If Gull’s been here recently it’ll be open.”

“And if it isn’t?” Jakes tested, never failing to play devil’s advocate.

“Then we’re first,” he breathed. “And there may still be time to save George Ogden.”

Their fear of belatedness came to fruition as Jakes drew his firearm and pushed against the door. It swung open with little hesitation, unhindered by any form of bolt or rust. His stomach sank with the familiar leaden feeling of dread but he refused to give into it, unwilling to be discouraged just yet. There was still time, perhaps. Just enough. The two exchanged a look before forging into the dark tower, dimming their lights, keeping them as bright as they dared, but enough to see by.

The place smelled terribly of damp and the stairs shone with water, all due to the recent rainfall that had snuck in through cracks of the ancient infrastructure. Jakes’ foot struck something on the first step and it clattered down to the floor. The sudden sound carried up to the next landing, sharp, touching off the rounded walls. Morse jumped back toward the doorway, startled, and Jakes swung around quickly, casting his light on the object.

It was a long, metal torch, standard law enforcement issue. The same they had in their hands. The glass lens had broken when it was initially cast down, the small shards littering the step. A spot of blood was evident on the shaft of it, a stark contrast to the paleness of the steel cylinder. Crimson and angry.

He was here.

“What are the odds that Ogden got the drop on him?” Jakes whispered as Morse joined him on the steps. “It’s his torch, could’ve knocked Gull on the head, ran out the door.”

Morse aimed his light toward the stairs ahead of them and found what he knew would be there, not believing for a moment that Gull would have allowed his prey to escape him so easily. Footprints in the dust and damp, accompanied by drops of blood. Only one set.

He gave Jakes a significant look and the other man swore lightly once he saw what Morse discovered. After a brief moment to compose themselves they pressed on into the tower’s upward spiraling depths.

They knew they found him when they smelled the wine. It was faint, but out of place amongst the petrichor and aged stonework.

Jakes tucked himself against the nearest doorway and motioned for Morse to step behind him. They clicked their lights off and stowed them away, but as silent as they were, they might as well have been gunshots in the quiet of the tower. Much too loud. But perhaps Gull was too occupied to hear them.

The very thought of what he could be ‘occupied’ with made him feel sick and his stomach consequently twisted itself into complicated knots of anxiety.

Morse drew in a slow, steady breath to calm his nerves, counting in his head as Jakes did with his fingers. One. Two.

On your mark. Get set.

And then Jakes drew his gun, swung his arm out, and pushed the door open.

Go.

The two officers rushed into the small room and were immediately assaulted by the pungent odor of blood and grapes, the soles of their shoes stepping into what was surely a mixture of the two. By the light of the moon pouring through the small windows they followed the disgusting trail toward the centre of the room where the body lay. It was a middle aged man in HMP uniform, splayed out on his back, the front of his shirt stained incredibly dark from a stab wound near his sternum. The blood appeared black as an ink spill, rather than a man’s life force. His face and hair gleamed in the dim light, wet, lips parted to draw a breath that would never come. His eyes stared at nothing.

A wooden pail full of a dark, sloshing liquid sat near his head, much of it already spilled over onto the floor.

Stabbed in the heart and drowned in wine. Just like Plantagenet.

Just as Mason Gull promised.

_We’re too late._ Morse ran a hand down his face and groaned, turning away from the sight. _Too late, too slow, too-_

When he opened his eyes there was a pair of shoes on the floor where he was facing. And somebody was standing in them.

A bloody knife gleamed at the man’s side and Morse was paralyzed. He opened his mouth to call for Jakes who was still observing the corpse but no sound was produced. He couldn’t be real. The figment from many a nightmare, always enclosed in darkness, a demon come back for him.

“Don’t like what you see?” the devil grinned, sounding somewhat…disappointed? “Hello, Endeavour.”

“Morse, who-” Jakes was turning around and finally saw what Morse was staring at. He raised his gun but Gull was quick, throwing Morse bodily into a wall and tackling Jakes, lunging like some preternatural creature released from hell. 

Morse cried out as pain shot through his shoulder and head and he dropped to the ground, feeling the sickly warmth of blood on his temple. He groaned and turned onto his side, rolling into something wet. His innards churned and he tried not to think about what it was. Couldn’t, rather, as he was still blinking the spots from his eyes and trying to get his arms to support himself.

His knife arched through the air but Jakes parried with his arm, the blade tearing through the rich material of his coat. It would have cut Morse’s threadbare fawn coat down to his skin, but only just got through the tightly woven wool.

“No offense, sergeant, truly,” Gull hissed, casting his knife aside and wrestling the gun from Jakes’s hands after stunning him with a punch to the chest. He lay beneath the madman, wheezing, attempting to regain the breath that was struck from him. “But this is between Morse and I. No room for you in the picture. I’m sure you understand.”

Jakes only coughed in reply.

“No!” Morse yelled, staggering toward him. He retrieved the discarded knife and held it with a shaking hand, half blinded by the blood crusting around his eyelid from the cut on his head.

Gull stepped away from Jakes and gave Morse an amused look.

He was thinner than he was before. Not in an unhealthy manner like Morse, just smaller than he had been in his role as Daniel Cronyn. The stolen uniform looked to be a size too large for him but enough to fit Ogden. His hair wasn’t as well kept as the doctor’s however, having thinned out over the years, but was combed in a manner meant to be presentable. Enough to sneak him into the prison under the guise of a trainee.

“Would you look at that?” Gull chuckled mockingly, cocking the gun and aiming it at Morse, his eyes glinting eagerly in the darkness, running on the high of his kill. “Clever Morse thinks he can bring a knife to a gunfight. Why don’t you be a good lad and drop that before I decide to get ahead of myself and blow your sergeant’s brains out?” The gun was back on Jakes. “I’d reckon I could do more damage before you even get a good strike at me.”

Morse only took a quick glance at Jakes and saw the blatant fear painted across his face before he gave into his own and dropped the knife, feeling his hand stained with the deed the weapon had done only moments before. The blood had not even dried. Literally and metaphorically.

“Good work on the puzzle,” Gull praised, keeping the gun held aloft as he backed toward the door, keeping eyes on the two of them. “I know it wasn’t much to go on but I figured you would find a way sooner or later. Turned out to be sooner. But not soon enough for your liking, I expect.”

He remembered what Jakes said about back up being on their way. It was possible he could keep Gull talking long enough for the reinforcements to grab him on his way out. Morse just needed more time.

“Why are you doing this?” Morse asked, dragging the sleeve of his coat across his eye so he could see once again. He forced himself to meet Gull’s animal eyes and implore him to explain, pushing the expression on his face. “Please. I need to know.”

Gull merely shook his head, still smiling wickedly. “All in good time. But for now I must bid you adieu. The show’s only just begun!”

He vanished through the doorway, heavy footfalls on the stairs outside. Morse ran to Jakes but he was already crawling onto his side, coughing and sporting the beginning of a bruise beside his eye where he must have been caught in the scuffle.

“I’ll be fine!” He waved Morse off as he gathered himself together. “Get after him! Go!”

Morse nodded and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Running toward Gull, running away from Ogden’s body, the stench of blood, of wine, of death. His thoughts were clouded with fading pain and the horrifying image in the tower, but at the same time he was able to propel himself into action, nearly skidding on the slick steps but managing to burst out of the tower in one piece. He came to a stop in the courtyard, frantically turning round and searching for any indication as to where Gull might have gone.

Somehow he heard the steps on the gravel behind him and managed to turn in time to see Gull bearing down on him, wielding Jakes’ gun by the muzzle. Morse dodged away from the blow that would have knocked him unconscious and rammed himself into Gull’s chest, taking him to the ground. The gun went flying and Morse scrambled to get a more advantageous hold, some way to get a punch in that would do damage, but Gull kicked him away. A solid boot to the chest sent him flat on his back, groaning in pain. That was going to bruise painfully.

Before he could even regain his bearings, Gull was upon him, knees planted on either side of his body as his hands closed around Morse’s throat like claws, unyielding. Strangling him.

Morse fought back as much as he could, thrashing and kicking out, scratching at Gull’s hands, but to no avail. Panic was a shrill sound in his head and the dull pulsing of blood past his ears, his heart thudding in his chest. He gasped, struggling to breathe against the iron grip around his neck.

He could still see the light in Gull’s eyes, that same keen, bloodthirsty gleam, transforming them from ball bearings to bullets.

Morse thought for a moment that perhaps he was wrong and that Gull would complete his killings without him, that he wasn’t as essential to the madman’s scheme as he initially deciphered.

But then the light began to dim.

Gull slowly released him and stepped back, towering above his crumpled form. Morse drew in a lungful of air and curled onto his side, coughing up a fit, his hands flying to his aching throat. His chest heaved as he inhaled and his head fell back onto the damp grass.

“Your time will come,” Mason crouched beside him, fingertips dancing over the wound on Morse’s brow from when he was thrown into the wall. His teeth bared in a smile. He stood. “As all men’s do. But not tonight. I have so much left to show you. This is my dirge, my elegy. All for you. You’ll see soon enough. See what I see. You just need to open your eyes.”

And with that he was gone.

“Morse!” Jakes called, seconds of eons later, feet crunching on the gravel path before hitting the grass. In the distance, flashlight beams waved and voices rang out with orders. “Where did he go?”

“Gone,” Morse said hoarsely, looking up at the starless sky, the pin pricks of light slowly being consumed by the incoming clouds.

He dropped down beside him and removed Morse’s hands from his collar, turning on his torch to examine the injuries.

“You’ll be fine,” he sat back on his heels, matter-of-fact. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, waving his light about the air to signal the others. “Almost weren’t though, I’d reckon. Why didn’t he just kill you? What’s this all for?”

The answer was far too long, far too complicated, and much too morbid to accompany what they’d just been through. He merely shook his head and, graciously, Jakes left it at that. He helped Morse to his feet and two went to meet the reinforcements. 


	5. Perfect Storm

“This is going to be a bugger to mend,” Jakes bemoaned the damage to the sleeve of his coat the next morning when he entered the bullpen, hanging it up with a look of irritation. Despite the brawl he had with Gull he was only sporting a slight bruise beside his left eye. Hadn’t even been blackened. He lit one of his French cigarettes and placed it between his lips, speaking around it. “Strange, you seem like a man with odd and unspoken skills. Any chance you know how to sew?”

“You may have survived Gull last night but you’re pushing your luck right now, matey,” Strange said in response, not even looking up from his typewriter to answer. Not worth his time. 

Morse disguised his laugh as a cough, and then regretted it as his bruised throat protested. 

Much of the previous evening was a bit of a blur once they reached the other officers. Morse was the only one with blood on him so he was immediately whisked away to a reproving looking DeBryn who was standing against his car, field kit in hand. When the officer who brought him over got Morse to sit still on a stretcher his first move was toward the dark stain on his side. 

“It’s not mine,” Morse shook his head, but the coat was removed all the same so they could corroborate his protests. “It’s not my blood.” 

And then suddenly he was glad the coat was off him. The coat stained with George Ogden’s blood and the wine he was drowned in. He doubled over and began gagging, but there was nothing in his stomach to come up. DeBryn stepped forward to rub his hand in soothing circles on his back, aiding as Morse’s heaving subsided and he lay down without complaint, allowing the scrape on his head to be tended to. 

Someone yelled for the doctor and he finished taping the patch of gauze over the wound after wiping away the blood with disinfectant. “Apologies, Morse, but it seems there’s a dead man who requires my assistance.”

Once DeBryn was out of sight, Morse glanced at his ruined jacket and the small stains on his shirt. With a disgusted and frustrated sigh he gathered up his things and slipped away from the scene. An officer he vaguely recognized, PC Skinner, ushered him into a vehicle and drove him back to his flat, his address being the only thing Morse said to him the entire time. That, and a brief thank you that Morse wasn’t entirely sure he heard. 

He spent the rest of the night hunched over his sink in a nightshirt and his pyjama pants as he took a wire brush to his clothing, scrubbing away the stain and stench of death with as much success as could be expected. 

Half past two, Morse heard a tentative knock on the door and took the needle off his record. He’d been trying to reclaim the soothing sounds of Rosalind Stromming’s voice, something that she and Gull both stole from him, replacing it with images of death. Walking to the door, his damp shirt hung over his shoulder, brush in hand, Morse answered it, expecting it to be some neighbour or other coming to complain about the music so late at night. 

Instead, it was Monica Hicks, still in her nurse’s uniform, just come back from a late shift.  Morse must have appeared as wounded as he felt because she gave him a sad sort of look and slipped past him into the flat, fixing up cups of tea for them both. They hardly spoke and he suspected it was in part due to their exhaustion and the fact that neither knew exactly what to say. Once the kettle boiled Monica ducked out, saying she needed to get honey from her flat for his throat, but by the time she returned he was already fast asleep, worn out from the day’s events. 

When he awoke there was a fresh cup of honey tea and his clothes were folded on the table, clean and dry, smelling of salt, ammonia, and rose water. Morse only wore the coat seeing as he had little in the way of options, choosing a suit that was hanging in his closet. Monica had done a fine job of cleaning the shirt of blood but rose water and bleach couldn’t cover the memories. Still, he couldn’t afford to be picky. He’d have to wear it again eventually. Just not today. 

Morse left a thank you note for Monica, slipping it under her door so as not to wake her before setting off. Perhaps he would get her flowers later. Nothing too romantic. He doubted either of them were in the mood for false hope. 

He utterly forgot that Thursday was meant to give him a lift and phoned the inspector once he reached the station, sending along the message that it wouldn’t be necessary. Thankfully Joan answered, sparing him from an argument. 

“You should’ve gone to Casualty for that.” Jakes gestured at Morse with his cigarette, the string of smoke snaking after it through the air. Morse was confused for a moment before realizing he meant his throat. When he looked in the mirror earlier to attempt to tame his unruly hair before heading out he saw the ring of light purples and reds smattered across his neck, the fading imprints of Gull’s murderous hands. “Or stayed home, at least.” 

Strange gave him a look. “Safest place for him right now is here in the nick, innit?”

Jakes shrugged. “Still, Thursday’ll throw a- morning, sir.” 

It seemed that nobody would know what Jakes thought their superior would throw. Morse looked up to see Inspector Thursday stepping into the room with the intensity of rolling storm clouds, pipe in hand and eyes hard as flint. 

“Somebody start talking,” he demanded, rooting himself between the doorway and Strange’s desk. When he noticed their astonished gazes he raised his eyebrows irritably. “Oh, come off it, you don’t think someone would have told me? When it comes to secrets it’s no small wonder you’re here and not special branch.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a secret, sir,” Jakes corrected him but soon realized it was a mistake, averting his eyes from the governor’s stony gaze. 

There was a brief moment of heavy silence before Morse broke it. 

“The clue left in the dictionary, the initials W.C.M were those of a man named William Chester Minor,” he divulged, holding up the book in question. “He was a volunteer contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary and was incarcerated Broadmoor for killing a man named George Merrett. That led me to George Plantagenet from Shakespeare’s  _ Richard III,  _ a prince stabbed in his prison tower and drowned in wine. I called Jakes and requested for assistance at St. George’s Tower within the prison at the old castle. It was my idea not to inform you. I didn’t want to see you come to harm after-”

He let it hang, feeling terribly hypocritical with his vagueness. While hating the allusions to his imprisonment he couldn’t even outright describe what had happened to Thursday. Morse looked down at his desktop, suddenly very intrigued by the scratches in the polished surface. 

Then Thursday let out a long-suffering sigh. “Trust you to find the needle in a haystack and prick yourself on it. You look like you’ve been through the wars. Seen Dr. DeBryn yet?”

“Last night.”

“Concussion?”

“I’m fine, sir,” Morse tried for a believable smile. But with his understandably haggard appearance, he wasn’t sure it worked. 

Thursday eyed him up and down before coming to a decision on the matter. He straightened and began moving toward his office. “Right, then. Better get used to having two shadows because I’m not letting you out of my sight. One of us three is to accompany you at all times no matter where you go. And I’ll be speaking to Mr. Bright about that security detail.” 

“Sir!” Morse protested. Jakes stubbed his cigarette out with a slightly peeved look on his face. Strange drew his shoulders back, clearly already prepared to accept his role as guard. 

“Mason Gull’s had years to plan this murder spree of his, there’s no doubt in my mind he’s got some mad plot for revenge in there somewhere.” Thursday pointed at him with his pipe. “You’re not safe so we’ve got to make sure you are and that’s the short and long of it.”

Before Morse could even think to argue against him, Thursday shut the door of his office, effectively cutting off any counterpoint. 

————

After hours of routine paperwork and examining every minutiae of the pictures and evidence gathered from the crime scene in St. George’s Tower in search of some sort of clue, Morse finally sat back in his chair and sighed. The bones in his shoulders shifted uncomfortably and his neck was stiff from being hunched over, and he couldn’t even say it was worth it. His extensive analyzing yielded no results. No symbols, anagrams, notes, nothing. 

The storm had cast a gray film across everything, making even the lights seem weaker in the dim desolation of the torrential downpour. It was almost impossible to see more than the indistinct forms of outside objects through the rain streaked windows. Jakes was sent out to finish inquiries at the prison and returned with an even more sour expression on his face than when he’d left. His coat was soaked through to his shirt, the umbrella only having done so much. 

He reached for the cup of tea Strange left him earlier and found the half finished contents cold. Surely it hadn’t been that long ago? Yet when he looked at the clock it was far past noon. Rain was hammering at the windows with insistent taps, a sound his inner thoughts had effortlessly drowned out. 

A few constables were huddled around a shared radio in the adjoining room, chatting and smoking, activities that were rarely mutually exclusive. The voice from the programme crested over them, reaching Morse’s curious ears as he strained to hear the weather report, hoping for a reprieve which they were all denied. 

_ “-heavy, cyclonic rain continues to shower over England today as the latest in a series of torrential spring storms makes an appearance.”  _ the anchor pronounced, sounding as if he were making some profound statement rather than stating the incredibly visible obvious.  _ “A deepening depression looks to be coming over from the northwestern part of France, meaning south-east England is in for a frightful downpour. Hope you’ve still got your brollies out, Oxfordshire, it doesn’t look to be letting up any time soon.” _

Morse stopped listening once the topic changed to the newest updates on the yachtsman, Francis Chichester, whose maritime circumnavigation was in its final stretches as he neared the shores of Great Britain once again. It was clear that the others were disinterested as well, save for a few ignored protests, static wailing as the majority ruled and scanned for a new station. 

It wasn’t the rain itself that bothered him, he just wasn’t looking forward to another draughty night in his small flat. The rain would surely be beating mercilessly at the new- but cheap- caulk the landlady’s husband placed around the windows, allowing the cool air to slip through the seams once again. Morse’s flat had been skipped when it was redone up in the winter due to his absence, the penny pinchers unwilling to invest until they were sure to have a tenant in their grasp. Still, there was a positive note to the aptly put depression. With any luck, the rain would be enough to hole Gull up somewhere, buy them all a day or two of ceasefire. His victim pool would be much more inaccessible what with everyone remaining indoors to seek refuge from the storm. Force him to reschedule his hunting. Give them time to find and arrest him. 

Morse sighed and stood, stretching his legs. Perhaps he’d go wash his face, check on his head wound. But the moment he even moved toward the doorway, Strange got to his feet, watching his motions intently. 

“Something wrong?” Morse looked at the man curiously. 

Strange shifted, straightening his shoulders with an air of importance. “Inspector Thursday said one of us had to be with you wherever you went.”

“And I’m quite certain he didn’t mean that literally.” Morse scoffed. “I’m just going to the lav, but you can come along if you really think Gull is hiding out behind a stall door.” 

Strange sat back down as Morse expected him to, but didn’t take his eyes off him until he’d left the room. Morse sighed and made his way to the lavatory, trying not to feel as if people were staring at the metaphorical target on his back.

Once in front of a mirror, he gingerly peeled the plaster from his forehead, wincing as it resisted and drew his skin up with it. The scrapes had healed to jagged lines of dark scabs, small in comparison to the amount of blood that emerged from them. Head wounds bleed more, he was told. If he moved his hair the right way it was hardly visible. Morse hook a finger under his collar to get a better look at the bruises and found them fading, tinged with green and yellow. At least there were some things that time could erase.

He splashed some cold water on his face, feeling significantly more alert, but he still jumped a bit when the door swung open and Jakes stuck his head inside. 

“When you’re finished dolling yourself up you’d better get back to your desk.” the sergeant remarked, holding the door for Morse. “Something’s come up, we need all hands on deck.” 

“What is it?” Morse finished drying off, straightening his tie before following Jakes out. 

He lit a cigarette as they walked. “Autopsy results just in from Dr. DeBryn. He found another of Gull’s coins under Ogden’s tongue, the guard in the tower. Stamped with the letters ‘CD’, and the numbers thirteen colon sixteen on the back. I’m thinking it’s a time, 13:16.”

Morse looked at his watch. “If it is then we’ve found it too late. It’s quarter to three just now.” 

“That’s what I told Bright,” Jakes nodded, pleased that he was being agreed with even though that wasn’t the case. “We’re thinking it could be for tomorrow. You’d have to be a mad bastard to be out in this rain.”

Morse scoffed as they entered the office. “But he  _ is  _ a mad bastard.” 

“Who’s this?” Bright’s reedy voice came from near the glass partition where they’d been taping up crime scene photos and portraits of the three victims thus far. He was standing with his arms folded behind his back, taking a pause from examining their collection of information. Thursday wasn’t far away.

“Gull, sir,” Jakes explained, sitting on the corner of his desk, taking a drag from his cigarette. “We were saying he’s a mad bastard.”

“Ah, yes, quite right,” Bright nodded amicably. Strange hid a chuckle rather poorly, stifling it into a cough as Thursday cast him a glance. 

The inspector extended a hand to Morse, holding an evidence bag between his fingers. “Take a look at this, would you? I’d value your opinion on it sooner rather than later.”

He accepted the object with an inquisitive look and pinched it with his thumb and forefinger through the plastic. It was the metal coin found on George Ogden. The most recent of three so far. True to Jakes’ word the letters ‘CD’ were engraved on the front, marking Ogden’s place in Gull’s morbid sonnet. And on the back, the promised numbers. 13:16. 

Morse understood now that his lateral thinking was what they were relying on, counting on him to find some obscure reference or clue that they were passing over. 

Jakes was certainly valid in assuming it to be a time, but that was not where Morse’s mind went and he was quite certain that he was embarking on the path Gull had taken, the road less traveled, so to speak. A time would be adequate if he wanted to flaunt their inadequacies, wave someone’s fate in front of their eyes tauntingly, forcing them to suffer as an unstoppable death loomed nearer. But the dictionary was a clue. And George Ogden was not killed until the evening. Gull had played somewhat fair, he’d given them hours to sort out the puzzle. 

_ And I failed to solve it in time,  _ Morse thought to himself, feeling his gut churn with unspoken guilt. Minutes. The blood was still warm. He could feel it on his hands, his shirt, the knife. Morse was late by just mere minutes. The coin in his hand suddenly felt as if it weighed several pounds, heavy with the lost life it represented. 

Suddenly he was back in his father’s room, the same brand of guilt and regret infused in his bones. As if Morse was fatally flawed to always be too late. 

That was it. His father. His father who was just as bad as communicating as Morse. His father who spoke with numbers just like these. Who quoted religious verses as if they summed everything up just so, never having to say anything original, never having to dedicate time to actually creating words to say to his loathed son. 

One of the last things his father said to him was through Joyce. Proverbs 12:16.

They needed 13:16. 

“I need a Bible.” Morse announced, opening up the nearest desk and rummaging through papers and loose notes, searching for the book. “Proverbs 13:16. That’s the clue.” 

“Are you sure?” Jakes asked, but he was already stubbing his cigarette out and following Strange into the space behind the glass partition where the other sergeant was going through boxes of recent evidence. 

“Think about it,” Morse said, suddenly coming upon the answer himself. “Gull was in a secure hospital with little access to outside materials. But he would never be denied things so benign as dictionaries or Bibles.” 

Or Shakespeare. 

All of this was planned from inside Broadmoor. The first victim, Petra Coates, was the sister of a fellow patient. Gull would have heard of her from James, possibly met her if she came to visit her brother. George Ogden was a prison guard. They likely crossed paths on occasion, he may have even aided in Gull’s transport after the trial. Robert Kingsley Sr. fit in there somewhere, Morse was sure of it. 

And now he was out in the world. More access. A larger victim pool. He may have planned this murder, planned all the ones to come after, without having to choose a victim connected to the hospital. Things had the potential to grow much more complex. 

“I’ve got someone’s King James pocket Bible.” Strange held it up, looking to Bright and Thursday for permission. 

“Well go on, then!” Bright urged, and Strange opened the evidence bag, handing the holy book off to Morse who immediately flipped through the pages, familiar words, redundant words, flying past his eyes until he found what he was looking for. What Gull wanted them to see. 

Morse rushed over to the chalkboard and silently read the line as he copied it down for everyone to see. 

_ “Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge,”  _ he murmured under his breath, his memory taking over as he finished.  _ “But a fool layeth open his folly.” _

“Is this another one of his insults?” Jakes inquired, referring back to the crudely composed Bocardo syllogism. He crossed his arms, angling his head at the board. “I’m not seeing a clue.” 

“King James was the patron of Shakespeare’s company during his reign, wasn’t he?” Bright suggested loosely. “That could be part of it.”

“He didn’t give us the Bible, sir.” Morse shook his head. “Just the proverb. I doubt he could have known which version we would access. The words are what he gave us so the clue must be in there.”

“So what do they mean?” he countered, ever the impatient, sounding as if he was expecting the answer to be prepared on a silver platter in a moment’s notice. 

“It’ll have to be connected to Oxford or a victim,” Morse said, stepping back to the study the words, glancing between the board and book. There was something nagging at the back of his mind, trying to scratch its way into the light. “George Plantagenet was stabbed and drowned so this victim will follow in suit.”

Strange looked to the window. “One could drown just by walking outside, matey. The streets are turning into rivers.” 

_ Of course. _

He faced the windows, the rivulets of water streaming down them. It was the perfect storm. Walling then up in the station, allowing him to roam free about the city. They assumed he would be shut inside just like them, but it was the exact opposite. He was using it to his advantage. 

Morse blinked and stared at him for a brief moment before turning back to the board, mouth slightly agape. 

Thursday knew that look well. An idea was perched on the tip of his mind, prepared to jump. 

“Morse?” he prompted, and the bagman was spurred into action, surging toward the board and fumbling for the piece of chalk, circling the word “folly” with haste. 

“Folly Bridge,” Morse said, dropping the chalk and rushing to grab his coat. “Just next to the colleges’ boating houses. We’ll be looking for a young woman.” 

“Ophelia,” Thursday realized aloud, eliciting a nod from Morse. “From  _ Hamlet.”  _

“The bird that drowned herself?” Jakes frowned before his eyes widened, understanding. 

“Fetch as many pairs of waders and extra hands as you can and meet us at Folly Bridge,” Thursday barked to him and the sergeant took off. “Strange, rustle up some wellies and umbrellas for all of us, we’ll be pouring half the Thames out on our footsteps if we go out like this.” 

“Yes, sir,” Strange nodded firmly and set off in search of the rain gear. 

“Sir?” 

Thursday looked to Jakes who was beginning to look vaguely ill, his complexion paler than usual, his throat bobbing with tension. He suddenly felt worried. “What is it, sergeant?” 

“Could I place a call?” Jakes shifted on his feet, shoulders hunching. “And Morse might want to talk to his sister. You should probably speak Joan too, just to make sure.” 

“Make sure of what?” he demanded, but Jakes wouldn’t reply. He knew the answer before Morse even said it, fixing those clear blue eyes on him. 

The words sounded hollow, coming from an aged organ piece than the nervous young man. 

“That it’s not one of them.” 


	6. Ophelia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a bit since my last update but I should be back on track now, and since the plot is picking up a bit I'm definitely going to have to be. Thank you all for sticking around and thank you so much for all of the wonderful, encouraging comments, I really appreciate them. Enough of my prattering now, I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Joyce, Joan, and Jakes’ unknown correspondent were all safe in their respective lives, Joan holed up at home having been given the day off, and Joyce tending to his step-mother, Gwen, who suffered from arthritis and was becoming borderline murderous due to the tempest.

 _“She’s just taken a turn,”_ Joyce explained helplessly, and he could hear the chatter from their old television set in the background, turned to some talk show that Gwen was no doubt mindlessly watching as she folded laundry or something mundane like that. _“It’s the weather. Bad for her joints. Nothing to worry yourself about, Endeavour, we’re both right as rain!”_

She laughed at her own joke and Morse couldn’t resist a smile himself at hearing it. Then Gwen started shouting something incoherent, something about “that wretched boy” and the smile slipped away. He said his goodbyes, Joyce made a kissing noise followed by another laugh and insisted he call again soon. He promised that he would, but they both knew he was unsure about keeping it. Joyce was wonderful to talk to. It was Gwen and her acerbic voice that chipped away at him. 

Still, Morse felt as if he was able to breathe properly for the first time that day. That was probably how he kept his hand steady enough to pick the phone back up and call DeBryn, requesting that he meet them at the bridge with an ambulance, blankets, a shock kit, everything. Prepare for the worst, never expect the best. Dare to hope for it.

They packed up their gear and bundled into two separate vehicles, Strange ushering Bright to the river, Thursday with Morse, while Jakes ran off to rally the troops from within the haze of tobacco smoke in the canteen.

Thursday pressed his hat firmly to his head as they rushed out into the small car park, immediately assaulted by the rain. Morse leapt into the driver’s seat, frantically blowing on his cupped palms to relieve the chill before fitting the keys into the ignition and following Strange’s patrol vehicle into the partially flooded streets.

Water splashed along the sides of their vehicles, the arterial spray of the roads misting over the windows and making it harder to see anything but the slightly distorted red and blue of their sirens.

Morse tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he drove, hunching over it anxiously. One thought kept repeating itself over and over in his head in different ways, drowning out Thursday’s words. _What if it’s too late? What if we’re too late?_

His heart climbed into his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, banishing the thoughts. He had to try and have at least a small modicum of hope. For the victim’s sake. For the poor girl Gull had randomly abducted to fulfill his sick plan, a girl with a family, a life, hunted only because of her name. Ophelia. Olivia, most likely.

A young woman, a child, alone in the water, fighting for her life or-

“Morse?” Thursday’s voice drew him back and he refocused just in time to slow down and realize Strange was making a left.

He cleared his throat and followed in suit, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, his view only interrupted by the windshield blades.

“Morse?” Thursday repeated, persistent.

“I’m just-” Morse exhaled heavily. “I’m worried about the girl.”

“We all are.” Thursday assured him. His face was morose, but softer than it was a moment ago. “We’ll make it. We have to. This bastard won’t get away with this for much longer.”

“But what if we don’t?” Morse tested, swallowing uncomfortably. “What if we don’t make it? What if I was too slow to solve Gull’s riddle?”

He suddenly felt the warmth of Thursday’s hand on his shoulder and he looked at him curiously.

“Thinking like that is what he wants,” the inspector said firmly. “Whatever happens, it’s not your fault, no matter how much he wants you to feel that it is. You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders. Certainly not her life”

Morse laughed bitterly. “Don’t I?”

“No.” Thursday shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

Morse didn’t know how to respond.

They reached the bridge in minutes, the distant cry of fellow sirens coming down the street. Morse stopped the vehicle in the car park beside Strange and everyone dove out, tugging on waders or boots. Jakes and the cavalry arrived in their identical squad cars. DeBryn pulled up alongside them, ambulance in tow.

The doctor stepped out of his car and immediately put up his umbrella, already clad in his fly fishing waders and vest, carting his medical bag along, his expression made grimmer by the gray light.

“DeBryn,” Strange greeted politely. Morse could only muster a nod, recalling the last time he saw the doctor. Soaked in blood. Now drenched in rain. Warm. Cold. Equally helpless.

From DeBryn’s face, Morse could tell he was thinking something similar.

Too many bodies in such little time. Too much death.

“I want men all along the bridge!” Thursday ordered from the top of the stairs that led down to the water, organizing the small crowd of uniforms Jakes had rustled up. Most of them were still tugging on their boots, steadying themselves with the shoulders of their colleagues. “Search along the bank for any sign of a body and give a shout as soon as you do!”

The bridge’s path across the river was only obstructed by the small island in the centre. Patchy groves of stooped trees that leaned over the bank, dangling their tresses over the water, lined the Thames. Morse could see the punters trussed up against the dock, bumping against each other, the small patches of grass submerged underwater. It was the rain. The water level had risen. Was still rising.

Rain beat down on their umbrellas in a deafening roar, _tap, tap, tap,_ a clock ticking out of control, broken, _tick, tick, tick._

Time.

Rising water.

“She could still be alive!” Morse ran down the stairs, keeping a hand near the railing in case he slipped on the slick wooden steps. He could hear the heavier, more cautious footfalls of Thursday following in suit. “The water level’s been rising with the rain, Gull wouldn’t have to stick around for her to die. There’s a chance!”

“Let’s hope so.” came the gruff response from Thursday over the dull roar of the rain against the planks.

Morse worked on untying one of the punters from the dock while Thursday shielded him from the rain, the rough rope scratching at his hands.

A sharp whistle broke through the air drew their gazes up to the bridge. Strange was waving frantically with his umbrella and pointing toward them. “Under the dock, Morse! The dock!”

Thursday looked down at his feet, lips curled. “What?”

Morse quickly flattened himself onto his stomach and peered over the edge of the dock, catching a glimpse of something coppery. A tendril of sunlight lancing through the water. No, not sunlight. Hair.

Ginger hair.

He looked beneath the dock toward one of the support beams and saw the source; a pale faced young woman, her eyes drooping shut, her mouth plastered shut, the water up to her chin. Her hand seemed to bound together with a length of rope, securing a bouquet of spring flowers between them.

_Ophelia._

Leaping up, he shucked off his coat and swung his feet over the ledge, frantically dropping into the water, ignoring Thursday’s cautioning shouts. Immediately, he was overcome by the frigid nature of the river, the cold not just seeping into his bones, but invading his veins. He had to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering while every muscle in his body was screaming at him to get out.

To think this girl had been in the water for minutes, perhaps even hours, struck a nerve deep inside of him. Morse swallowed down the feeling of immense sickness and tried to concentrate on the task at hand.

“She’s tied to the underside of the dock!” Morse held on to one of the punters to keep himself afloat. “Do you have a knife on you?”

Thursday withdrew a small pocket knife from his coat pocket and carefully passed it to him, steadying himself. “I’ll go on and fetch DeBryn, have you got her?”

“I think so,” Morse nodded, flicking the knife open and taking a shaky breath before pushing away from the boats and under the dock.

The water was deep even there, even for him. He couldn’t even brush the silt floor with the tips of his shoes. Using the beam as a hold, Morse reached out to pull the tape from the girl’s face. Her eyes flew open and she heaved in a massive gasp, clear blue irises staring at him with a mixture of fear and hope.

“You- who-” she spluttered, choking on a mouthful of water as a small wave crested over them. Her face contorted for a brief moment and she spat out a small copper coin. Morse caught it just as it went beneath the water but saw nothing of significance other than the ‘CD’ marking her place in the pattern. No clue. He let it fall.

“It’s alright, I’m a policeman,” Morse assured her, blinking the water from his eyes. The chill was becoming more of a numb feeling. “What’s your name?”

“C- C- Connie. Brooks.” her voice was barely above a whisper. “Y- you?”

“My name’s Morse.” His fingers were losing their hold on the knife. “The rope, is it just your hands?”

The woman shook her head, hair stuck to her face like erroneously coloured seaweed. “My- m- my f- feet. The pole. C- can’t mo-move.”

He placed his hand on her shoulder, rubbing it through the thin material of her white dress. She made a small keening sound, leaning into the touch, her lips trembling. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m just going to free your legs.”

She nodded and Morse took a deep breath, steeling himself and adjusting the grip on his knife before plunging beneath the water.

Immediately, a gasp tore itself from his throat, bubbles of air forming in the water in front of his face. _Cold. Freezing. Hellishly cold._

The river was dark, murky, and he could hardly make out the light colour of the dress, but used it as a guide to reach the beam the girl was trussed up against, following it down until he could feel the rope and the smooth contrast of skin.

His lungs cried for air but there was nothing he could do about it, so he tried to work as fast as he could, using the serrated end of the blade to saw away at the bonds. He worked at it as much as possible before coming back up for air and making a second go of it. Thankfully it wasn’t terribly thick, taking only seconds this time around for it to fray and fall to the riverbed. Morse kicked off the ground, propelling himself to the surface once again.

Once his head broke the water, he sucked in a sputtering breath, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. “H- hands.”

The woman held her hands out to him and he cut them free, throwing the flowers aside and linking her arms around his neck so he could swim them both out from underneath the planks. Mildew ridden wood was soon replaced with gray skies and the hands of officers reaching down to pull them onto wet land.

Morse’s drenched clothes stuck to his all too thin frame, giving him the appearance of a drowned scarecrow, his unruly hair plastered to his head, shoes full of water. The girl looked like a ghost, her gauzy dress doing nothing to combat the chill of the air against her freezing body. He could hardly feel his feet. Hands. Anything.

Someone draped a blanket over his shoulders when he got to his feet, the girl bundled up in several along with the jackets and scarves of the officers. She cast Morse a tired glance before she was carried away by Jakes toward the ambulance.

Morse took five steps before the shaking in his knees became too much and he was forced to sit, dropping down onto the second to last step of the stairway and pulling the blanket tighter around himself. He let out a rattling breath infused with relief. They saved her.

“What was that you said, matey?” Strange asked jokingly, coming down to stand in front of him, close enough to cover him with his umbrella. “Bit of fresh air wouldn’t kill you? How’re you feeling?”

“Colder than the dead,” His words were slightly slurred. Morse tried to force a smile but it came out as more of a grimace. “Will she be alright? The girl?”

“Touch of hypothermia, but it looks like she’ll pull through.” DeBryn said from behind him, walking down to stand beside Strange. They both gave him a curious look and he shrugged. “Better with the dead than the living. She’s in good hands with the medics. No, I’m merely here to tend to soaking wet detectives who’ve been left behind like lost luggage.” From his bag he produced a tall thermos and two tin mugs, handing one to each of the officers and pouring steaming hot tea into them.

“Oh, bless you, doc,” Strange praised, bringing the mug to his lips. Morse waited before drinking his, enjoying the burning warmth seeping into his hands from the hot metal.

“Inspector Thursday took your coat and went off to fetch you a warm change of clothes,” DeBryn said, serving himself his own cup of tea using the thermos lid. “I’m to take you to hospital once you’re fit to stand.”

Morse laughed hollowly. “I’m fine.”

“Try saying that again when you don’t look like you’re going going to cark it on the stairs.” Strange set his mug on the railing and shook off his coat, preparing to put it over Morse when the other man gave him a look. Strange sighed. “Come off it, matey, your stubbornness is going to be the death of you sooner or later.”

“Hasn’t killed me yet.”

“Famous last words,” DeBryn spoke over his tea. He set it on the railing and stooped beside Morse to take his pulse, frowning slightly. “Bit weak. Have you been sleeping well lately?”

He tried to find a way to answer the question without it being a full on lie. His mind went back to the night before and his attempts to stave off sleep and the nightmares he knew would come. Giving in, Morse shook his head honestly.

“Exhaustion can weaken your tolerance to cold,” the doctor said sagely, pouring Morse some more tea and watching closely, making sure he drank all of it. “Best we get you checked out at the Radcliffe. Sergeant, would you mind tracking down Inspector Thursday and telling him where we’re off to? Once we’ve gotten Morse up, that is.”

“Of course, sir,” Strange tipped his head.

It took a minute of wheedling and minor threats before Morse let himself be ushered into the passenger seat of DeBryn’s little blue car. The engine was still running and the heat was on full blast washing over Morse in a blissful wave of comfort. His eyes slid shut and a sigh drew itself from his lips as he settled in, leaning against the window, the blanket keeping his clothes from soaking the upholstery, Strange’s coat adjusted over his front. The driver’s door closed and DeBryn gently prodded Morse’s arm.

“Do try your best to stay awake, wouldn’t do us much good if you slipped off now would it?”

Morse sighed tiredly but obeyed, deciding to think rather than sleep. There hadn’t been a clue this time. Nothing obvious, anyhow. Nothing on the coin. Perhaps it was in the flowers. A uniformed officer would end up retrieving them if they hadn’t already. He didn’t notice anything significant about them, just a standard bunch you could pick up at the market for a few pounds. If the clue was something as vague as the symbolism behind floral arrangements, however, they were surely buggered.

But that was a worry for later. Right now he had to concentrate on… something. What was it? The rain? Connie Brooks? No, not Connie, something else, someone else…

He couldn’t quite grasp it so his mind fell on Gull. Mason had lost this round. It was likely he would try again if he knew. Or perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps he would spend the remainder of the storm plotting the next abduction and murder. This time, they didn’t have the liberty of knowing what the theme would be. Brooks was a failed drowning, but that was the plan nonetheless. Two poisonings, two drownings. The next was unknown.

Until the body dropped.

But by then, of course, it would be too late.

\---

Upon arriving at the Radcliffe, instead of going in formally as a patient, DeBryn led Morse to the staff locker room and showers, handing him a towel that smelled faintly of antiseptic and assuring him that he’d be back with a change of clothes, leaving to give him some privacy.

Morse ruefully removed Strange’s coat and hung it on a hook, folding up the blanket and placing it on a bench in front of the stall. He pulled the shower curtain shut behind himself as he stepped into the small cubicle, placing his shoes outside and working at peeling off his damp clothing, forming a neat pile beside the footwear. There was a slight tremor in his hand as he reached for the shower knob and he sighed through gritted teeth, fighting it so he could turn the nozzle. A slight creak sounded and the pipes in the walls gave a shudder before a cascade of blissfully hot water fell down upon him, unceasing.

He moaned softly, crossing his arms over his chest and stepping directly below the showerhead, letting the warmth flow over his head, shoulders, arms, back, his whole body, slowly but surely erasing the numbness and cold and replacing it with something that felt a little more akin to life.

Twenty minutes must have passed. Morse worked to wash the dank smell of the river from his hair and used the small bar of odorless soap to do the same for his skin, reminding him of scrubbing George Ogden’s blood from his clothes. By the time he shut off the water, there was a heavy fog of steam clouding the stall and his pale skin had turned a soft pink from the heat.

After drying his hair with the towel and wrapping it around his waist, he stuck his head out from behind the curtain and saw that the shower room was still vacant, save for an occupant of a neighbouring cubicle. A stack of clothes sat on the bench, his wet ones gone from the floor, flannel stuffed into his shoes. Bare feet against tile, he quickly crossed over to the bench and took the clothes and shoes, ducking back into the stall to change. He placed each article of clothing separately along the ledge meant for soap bottles, analysing what he’d been given.

The trousers were clearly his. A little worn at the cuffs, stitchwork from the hemming to make the waist fit a bit better. As were the undergarments and vest. In place of one of his shirts, however, was an unfamiliar sweater. It was thick, maroon, and woolen, likely hand made. Morse frowned slightly, a bit confused. It certainly wasn’t his and it was far too small to belong to Thursday, Strange or DeBryn. Jakes would never wear something like this, and after the last time Morse bloodied one of his starched shirts, he doubted the sergeant was in the mood to be lending him clothes again. The socks were dark gray and woolly. Handmade like the sweater. They weren’t his, but they were what he was left. And admittedly, they did look warm. Comfortable.

So he dressed, placing one hand against the wall so he wouldn’t slip as he stepped into his pants and trousers, tugging on the socks and slipping into slightly damp shoes. Undershirt, then sweater. It was a bit loose on his shoulders but the sleeves fit snug on his lanky arms. He only had to fold the cuffs up once.

He pushed the curtain open and this time Thursday was there, standing on the other side of the bench, Morse’s dry coat in his hand.

“Feeling better?”

“Much, thank you.” Morse nodded, and this time, unlike his earlier protests stating that he was fine, it was true.

Thursday chuckled slightly and gestured at the sweater. “That’s yours, lad. Win knitted that up for you while you were in prison. The guards didn’t take kindly to the idea of gifts so we never were able to get it to you. I did tell her you were still whip thin as always but it did turn out a bit large, I suppose.”

“And the socks?” Morse inquired, hugging his arms to the chest, reveling in the comfort of the new sweater, too tired to protest that it wasn’t necessary and he didn’t merit gifts.

“Yours too.”

Morse was stunned into silence for a moment. “Please tell Mrs. Thursday thank you for me, she needn’t have gone through the trouble, really, I-”

“Morse.”

“Sir?”

The inspector sighed, exasperated. “Morse, once in a blue moon you should consider the fact that there are people out there who actually care about you. Myself and Mrs. Thursday included.” He passed the coat over. “I put this through the new drying machine at home before stopping off at your flat.”

Morse accepted his coat and shrugged it on, patting his pockets and finding his notepad, pen, and keys replaced within them. “How is the victim? Connie Brooks?”

“She’s out of the woods for now,” Thursday led the way from the locker room and out into the ward. The thermostat had been raised, the place a bit warmer than it usually would be with its arctic white walls. “We were able to contact her parents. They were out of town for work. London. Should be back by morning.”

“And the flowers?” Morse asked as they weaved around bustling nurses and wheelchairs. “Was there a clue?”

Thursday shook his head. “Nothing that we could find. Even had DeBryn take a go at them, see if there was any symbolism we missed. Nothing notable, just rubbish like ambition and love. Our best chance is the girl, see if there’s anything she recalls that could be of use to us.”

“Is she fit to make a statement?”

“We’re soon to find out,” Thursday gestured at the cot they’d stopped in front of.

Connie Brooks lay under several layers of thick blankets, her russet hair dried and combed neatly over the pillow. Her hands and wrists were bandaged, clutching a hot water bottle. Another was tucked against her side and no doubt several more were arranged beneath the blankets.

At first it seemed as if she was staring off into nothingness, but her gaze refocused and she turned her head to face the two, her eyes softening when she saw Morse. Her left index finger twitched as she made to point at him, purplish lips curving into a smile. “You’re the man that saved me. The policeman. Morse.”

“I’m his friend, Fred. Fred Thursday,” Thursday took a seat in one of the chairs beside her bed and Morse did the same. “I’m an inspector with Oxford City Police. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, Miss Brooks?”

“Connie, please,” she insisted. “Miss Brooks makes me feel like my sister. She’s the eldest, very proper like that, she is. Miss Brooks this and that. Call me Connie.”

“Connie, then.” Thursday nodded, smiling softly so as to comfort her. “Do you remember anything about the man who did this to you?”

She nodded, taking a breath to steady herself. “I ran into him when I was coming home from the shop I work at. We’d closed up early on account of the storm. Said his dog had gotten free of him and he was wondering if I’d seen him. Had a leash and everything so I figured he was telling the truth. We walked down the street but he must’ve hit me ‘round the head when we turned a corner because I don’t remember much until the water.”

“What did he look like?” Morse questioned, linking his hands and leaning forward.

Connie closed her eyes for a moment. “Bit funny, he was. His face, anyway. It was twitching a bit but I don’t think he really noticed much. Long face. Thin, like he wasn’t quite healthy. Thin blonde hair, dunno what colour his eyes were. His clothes were nice, though. It’s what made me trust him a little. He dressed like my dad. Sweater over a collared shirt, brogue shoes.”

Thursday produced a photograph of Gull, the one from his file at the station, and Connie took a quick look at it before turning away. “That’s him alright.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Morse pressed, feeling slightly desperate, like time was running out, sand trickling through an hourglass and they didn’t know when it would stop. “Was there anything he said that struck you as odd? Anything he told you to remember or tell us? Some sort of clue as to where he might be going?” _Who he might kill next?_

She blinked, thin eyebrows furrowing. “Clue. I think… yes. A clue. He told me just before he left me down there, said ‘the clue is in your name’, whatever that means. I don’t see how that could be, my name’s nothing special. Constance Marie Brooks.”

Morse fell back in his seat, feeling as if he’d been shocked. _Constance._ That was what he’d been unable to think of earlier, his mind muddled by the cold and exhaustion. A name he hadn’t heard in a long time, a name he only knew from being written on the backs of photographs and across the headstone near the place he could hardly call home. Constance Morse. His mother. The woman with hair as fiery as the sun, as warm as an open flame. Eyes as clear as a mountain spring.

Just like Connie Brooks.

“Morse?” Thursday gave him a questioning look. “What does that mean to you?”

 _Me._ His mind screamed. His thoughts pummeled his skull. _Me me me me me me. It’s me._

_It’s me._

“My mother.” Morse finally was able to say, his throat feeling incredibly dry, voice hoarse. “Her name was Constance. She looked very similar to Connie, same hair and eyes.”

“But…” Thursday blinked, confused. “Your mother is dead, isn’t she?”

“It’s meant for me.” Morse closed his eyes. “Only I could know that.” _And_ _him_. _He_ _found_ _out_ _somehow_.

Thursday was quiet for a moment. Taking it in. Understanding.

“What?” Connie demanded, looking back and forth between the two, clutching the hot water bottle even tighter, her nails digging into the rubber. “What’s it mean?”

“It means,” Thursday said slowly, hollowly. “He’s coming for Morse next.”


	7. Pas de Deux

They stayed with Connie until a nurse came by to check her vitals and informed the two that she needed rest. The girl did seem to be a bit worked up, staring at Morse with a certain intensity,  almost as if he was unreal, a spectre.

Already dead.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Connie asked, her face wrought with worry. She tried to sit up but the nurse gently pushed her back against the pillows when she began to cough violently, her small body shaking. “Will he come after me and finish the job?”

“I don’t know,” Thursday told her honestly, offering what he could in the way of a comforting smile. “But we’ll have an officer watching over you until we’re sure you’re safe. He’ll take your statement once you’re up to it.”

The young woman looked to the ceiling or perhaps something beyond before closing her eyes. “Why me? I just mean- why did he come after _me?”_

To the inspector’s surprise, Morse answered. He looked worn down, tired, like an overused bit of flannel.

“Trust me,” he said soothingly, fiddling with the hem of his new sweater. It took a moment before he brought his head up, Connie watching him expectantly. “You’ll drive yourself mad trying to find the answer to that.”

 _I know,_ were the words unsaid. He didn’t doubt that Morse had asked himself countless times why he was the target of Gull’s fixation ever since the opera murders.

Thursday all but ushered Morse from the hospital, not straying more than five feet from him and keeping a wary eye on anyone who got closer than that, even if they were hospital staff. Gull was prone to disguises and Thursday wouldn’t put it past him to sneak into the hospital, either to finish off Constance Brooks or capture Morse.

Win would tease him about being such a mother hen and bring up some long forgotten story about he would always hover over Joanie while they taught her how to ride her first bike or Sam when he tried out for rugby at school and got a concussion. He’d laugh, of course, but it was true. Fred was protective by nature. He supposed that was made him choose to become a copper. Save the people that needed saving. Protect the vulnerable. Now, that extended past his own children. It extended to Morse.

Morse, whose mother’s death was being hung over his head as a taunt.

To his credit, he didn’t appear afraid. Not like Thursday would have expected him to be. If anything, he just seemed tired, a little nervous. Morse’s usual edge had been taken off of him, toned down. He only appeared slightly wary, lacking any major form of hypervigilance.

Then again, Morse _had_ just jumped into the partially frozen Isis to rescue the victim of a madman who nearly strangled him the night before. He’d had his fair share of terror and risk in the past twenty four hours. A thinly veiled death threat would take a moment to process.

There was no argument when they got to the car, Morse didn’t put up a fight and insist to drive, climbing into the passenger seat and buckling up, staring out of the window at the receding storm, eyes clouded over with thought. Thursday didn’t try to coax any speech out of him, resigning them both to a wordless drive.

Still, Thursday could relate to some small extent. He’d been the target of Mason Gull’s homicidal madness at one point, ages ago on the rooftop of Alfredus College. A pipe, a knife, and Morse with his overly selfless nature, scaling the building to tackle a serial killer and save his superior officer.

He shook his head with a sigh. Back then it was Morse who solved his absurd puzzles, just as it was now. It wasn’t enough for Gull to kill four people, his mother, plaster Morse’s face on his wall and stab him. No, he just had to come back for a second round. Terrorizing Oxford once didn’t cut it.

It went deeper than that with Morse, though. It didn’t take a genius to tell. It was written in his behaviour, spoken in his silence. More than a scar, the bruises, the river. Gull hadn’t needed a knife to nick his soul.

And all the Thursday household teatimes and handknit sweaters in the world couldn’t mend that.

———

Strange finally returned to his desk after the scene was done being processed. He’d run between Thursday’s home and Morse’s flat to find the inspector and direct him to the hospital. He briefly entertained the idea of returning to his own place to fetch a change of clothes for himself but decided against it. Best to get back to the nick, all hands on deck and whatnot.

The station felt like a resilient old lighthouse forever standing at its port, a stubborn beacon amidst the storm and criminal chaos. The upper windows were dark but a warm, orange glow permeated the steadily building fog, coming from where he knew the canteen to be. Laughter emerged from the propped open window, the scent of cheap corner store cigarettes and tinned meals escaping and reaching from across the walk. He shook his head and chuckled to himself, ducking inside. They were celebrating, naturally. Today had been a small victory in the raging war. Between the weather and the horrid murders being dropped on their doorstep, Jim couldn’t blame them one bit. Hell, he’d join in if he wasn’t worn out to the bone. Briefly, he wondered if this was how Morse felt constantly, the way the man seemed to light his way by burning the wick at both ends. The answer was leaning toward the affirmative.

Ascending the stairs to his floor, he entered the bullpen and found it deserted like an abandoned ship. All the life was beneath his feet, all the action and officers downstairs. Heaving a sigh, he draped his coat over the back of his sturdy chair and sat, giving his typewriter a significant look as if expecting it to tell him what it was he needed to do.

Given that it didn’t respond, Strange passed a hand over his head and leaned back in his seat, his eyes facing straight ahead at the chalkboard. Morse’s neat scrawl was still there, the passage from the bible, 13:16. Amazing what they’d been able to glean from the vague passage. All he saw was Sunday school material, but Morse got a location and an accurate prediction of who the victim would be. He’d never have that going for him, Strange thought. It wasn’t in a defeated or jealous way. Their Morse was one in a million, a bright young lad that could have had much brighter prospects than chasing and being chased by deranged killers.

As if compelled by the thought of him, Strange took a glance at Morse’s desk. It was fastidiously neat as always, lacking the crumpled wrappers and smashed cigarette butts of his and Jakes’. No photos like Thursday or Bright. No deeply personal items or insights into his character. Just before Morse had come back, the cleaners tended to his long abandoned desk and took it upon themselves to place an ashtray in the upper right corner. Perhaps they thought it was what was missing, rather than the detective constable who was meant to preside over the space. Strange came in a few days earlier and noticed the foreign object immediately, placing it on Jakes’ stack of unfinished paperwork, knowing he’d have better use for it. Or use, period.

There was something new this time as well. Jim stood with a frown, crossing over to Morse’s desk where a thin box sat, wrapped in plain brown butcher paper and adorned with a red bow, the ribbon strung though a small card. He pinched the paper between his fingers and flicked it open, finding the words ‘ _To Detective Constable Morse’_ written in a flourishing hand. There was no signature save a small sketch of a dark tipped feather.

Like a gull’s.

Something soft fell into his palm and he nearly dropped it from the surprise, a vile word on his lips.

“Wotcher. Who’s the unlucky bint?”

Strange started, turning to see a wispy cloud of smoke preceding Sergeant Jakes as he took his place at his own desk, smirking cannily.

“Not mine,” Strange only needed to take a few steps to reach him, passing it over. Jakes exhaled heavily and held his cigarette aloft, taking the package in his other hand, peering at it curiously. “Did you see who left it?”

Jakes shrugged and shook his head, setting it to the side, but a grim shadow had fallen across his face. “I’ve been down in the canteen with the boys since we got back from the bridge. Bright’s probably in his office with his beak so far up the old Gull files that I doubt he heard anyone come up. Might just be someone’s sick idea of a joke, you can’t deny that Morse has rubbed quite a few people up the wrong way over the years.”

Strange held out the object that had fallen into his hand. It was a lock of red hair, a bit on the darker side, just like the hair of the girl they pulled from the river. It was tied with a bit of thread so the strands didn’t fall away. “I don’t know anyone here that’ll find this funny.”

The other man stared for a few seconds before looking away with a disgusted sound. He stubbed his cigarette out angrily and ran a hand through his slick hair, looking as if he wanted to pick a fight with every inanimate object in the room. “Jim, was he in here? Was he really in here and we _missed him?”_

“I don’t know, matey,” Strange’s shoulders sank and the darkness of the room began to feel like a physical burden. “I just don’t know.”

———

They returned to the station to find it quiet and dark. The rain had slowed to a mild shower and the lights hadn’t been turned on yet, save for one or two desk lamps. A blue light was cast over everything, giving the place a solemn, otherworldly dimness. The radio, unlike earlier, was silent and not even Jakes who always had some sort of remark to share didn’t say a word. Strange stood in front of Morse’s desk, holding a thin rectangular package in his hands with the same foreboding reverence as a funeral urn. Brown paper, red ribbon, a small card.

“What’s this then?” Thursday gestured at the object, removing his hat and hanging it within his office.

Jakes scratched his temple, observing his shoes intently. Strange adjusted his hold on the package, shoulders hunched forward as if he was shielding it from everyone else.

The pressure in the room seemed to drop and Morse could hear- _feel -_ the blood rushing past his ears, and he straightened, his shoulders tensing on their own accord. He’d become attuned to shifts like this over the years, changes in attitude, demeanor, posture. It awarded him an incontestable ability to sense that something just wasn’t right.

Broadmoor’s thirteen sirens cried out shrilly in his mind.

“Strange?” Morse gave him a questioning look when he didn’t respond. He didn’t step forward, lingering a few feet away, unsure whether he should approach.

The sergeant allowed Thursday to take the parcel from him when he reached for it, skirting away back to his own post as if he was finally free of the contents.

Morse folded his arms, brow furrowed as he watched the silent, film noir-like scene unfold in front of him, characters without speech, unreadable faces. It was disconcerting, alienating.

Finally, Inspector Thursday looked up, his posture sagging, something all too familiar on his face. Frustration. Anger.

“It’s addressed to you.” he said gruffly, tearing the card from the ribbon with a sharp jerk and holding up something that looked uncomfortably like a lock of human hair. Strange didn’t even have to be asked, coming forward to collect it in an evidence bag. “Looks like Connie Brooks’ hair.”

Jakes frowned. “Who?”

“The girl from the river,” Morse supplied.

“It was just sitting on his desk, sir,” Strange explained, rubbing his face and turning away. Guilt. Shame. “No one saw a thing. I’m sorry, matey.”

The last bit was no doubt directed to Morse. He smiled wanly toward Strange, but he could feel every nerve, ever fibre standing precariously on edge, a songbird balancing on too thin a branch.

“Reckon we should open it.” Jakes leaned against a filing cabinet, expression dark. “If it’s a clue then we’ve got no choice, we’ll need as much time as we can get.” He saw their blank faces and threw his hands up. “Let’s face it, we got lucky today. Another half hour and that Brooks girl would have been in the morgue, not the hospital.”

“And if it’s a bomb?” Thursday tested, scowling at the sergeant. “Or poison? Acid?”

“Morse?” Jakes turned to him, eyebrows raised. He tipped his head toward the parcel. “Where’s your word in this?”

Morse glanced between the two, feeling conflicted, but there was reason in Jakes’ words. They _had_ been lucky. Incredibly so.

He cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. “He’s- he’s not the type. For a bomb, anyway. And my death- it’s personal for him, this. It-” Morse took a moment to breathe. It was uncomfortable, speaking about himself as if he were a victim. _Potentially. Potential victim._ He spat the words out like bitter medicine. “It wouldn’t be quick. And Sergeant Jakes is right, sir. If it’s a clue we’ll need to see it sooner rather than later.”

“Needs must when the devil drives, sir,” Strange nodded his somber assent.

Thursday didn’t seem pleased with their vote but conceded nonetheless, giving Morse the package with ill concealed hesitance.

He was surprised by how light it was. The fact that Thursday could even think there was something harmful in it was nearly unfathomable. It felt almost empty. Yet, when Morse tilted it, something hit the side with a soft tap. A deft tug to remove the ribbon, taken away by Strange and placed into a bag, and a few moments to tear the wrapping off, revealing an oblong paper box. All eyes were on him when he opened it.

Inside lay a single red rose. It stood out like a drop of blood in snow against the white tissue paper it sat in.

Morse carefully lifted the flower from the box and spun the stem between his fingers, observing it from every angle, searching for something, anything, but something in his mind told him there would not be anything. Nothing, save the sentiment.

His stomach twisted into a knot that would make the most experienced of seafarers proud. He wanted to burn it. Take one of  Jakes’ lighters and set the rose on fire, throw it in the metal rubbish bin and watch as the flames consumed it, petals curling, leaves charring. It was pristine, but it was infected, tainted by the hands that once held it.

 _Why?_ Morse though, staring at the offending rose. Even the existence of it in the room felt violating. _Why send me a rose, Mason?_

A second card lay among the paper containing a phrase that only took a moment to translate.

 _“Pas de deux,”_ Morse took the card and pinned it to their evidence wall, dropping the flower back into the box it came from and closing it with the finality of a coffin. There was nothing it could offer them. “‘A dance for two’.”

The rose, the cards, it was an invitation. A cordial ‘ _may I have the honour of your company so I can violently murder you and display your body in an artistic manner for your colleagues and all of Oxford to see?’_

Jakes detached himself from the file cabinet, gravitating toward the board and the small collection of coins amassing on its ledge like morbid offerings to a pagan deity. His dark eyes were suddenly alight with revelation. “He’s coming after Morse. That’s why he didn’t kill him at the tower last night. Gull’s got other plans.”

“Between this and what little we could get out of Constance Brooks I’m afraid that’s true,” Thursday agreed. His face suddenly contorted and he let out a series of lung rattling coughs that made Morse wince a little.

“What are we supposed to do, then?” Strange waited to ask until after the coughing had subsided. “How do we keep Morse safe?”

“It’s pretty secure down in lockup.” Jakes flicked the lid of his lighter open and bounced it off his thumb, messing with it. “No one can get to him if he’s in a cell.”

Strange’s expression turned darker than a storm cloud. As if on cue, thunder rumbled outside of the window, an ethereal roar sweeping through the room. “That’s not funny.”

Jakes tilted the lighter so the lid fell shut on its hinge and he slipped it back into his pocket, standing toe to toe with the slightly taller man. “I’m not laughing, am I? You said it yourself not so many weeks ago. Safest place for Morse to be while we cleaned up that business with Deare was in the nick. He stays here, he’s safe.”

Strange’s eyes narrowed and he gave Jakes a foul look. “You just don’t know when to stop, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sergeants, stand down,” Thursday said with a heavy sort of calm, watching the two men carefully from a distance. “That’s an order.”

Morse hadn’t moved from the board, magnetized to it, unwilling to move. The atmosphere was charged, tense, unsafe. “Strange,” he tried diplomatically, despite how Jakes’ comment had indeed crossed a line with him. “Just let it go.”

“With all due respect, guv, I’d like to hear what Sergeant Strange has to say,” Jakes glanced briefly at Thursday before facing Strange once again, the shadow of a sneer on his sharp features. “Come on, let’s have it.”

“Throughout this whole mess you’ve always had a smart word to say, haven’t you? Ever since the beginning,” Strange loomed, glaring down at his opponent. “‘Laughing-boy’s pin-up’? That’s what you called him. ‘Pay no mind to Sergeant Jakes’, they say, ‘he’s just got a razor tongue, says what he pleases, gets the job done at the end of the day.’ Fine job you did that night hell came up at Blenheim Vale. Where were you, hm? At the pub with a pint when your _colleagues_ needed help. Thursday gets a bullet in his lung, Morse thrown in prison. Where were you?”

“Don’t talk about things you don’t know, Jim.” Jakes snarled, shoving Strange’s shoulder roughly. But it didn’t rustle him.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Strange retorted. “Cracking wise about putting Morse in lockup after the months of being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure.  You’re not good for much else, are you? Maybe that’s the problem.”

Jakes laughed incredulously. “We’re going there, are we? I didn’t see you anywhere last night when Morse called the station up half past nothing o’clock to chase a madman through the prison grounds. I know we failed him before, that’s why I went. To make up for things. Protect him.”

“Fine job you did of that. He almost got killed.” Something passed over his face, something ugly and terrible. “But what’s that to you? Gull got to Morse on your watch, got into the station while _you_ were here. And earlier-” Strange cocked his head accusingly. “Who did you call, _Peter?_ You wouldn’t say. Took your call in the other room.”

“Shut up.” Jakes pushed him away again.

“No, who did you call?” Strange put out a hand to shove Jakes’ shoulder this time. Again. Again. “Morse called his sister. Thursday called his daughter. You don’t have either of those. So who did you call, Jakes? Who was it?”

“It’s none of your business.” Jakes planted both hands against his chest, thrusting the sergeant several feet from him, eyes aflame, his hair falling across his forehead. “Leave it be.”

“You know what I think?”

“That’ll do, Strange.” Thursday warned.

Strange ignored him. “I think you called ‘laughing-boy’, told him we’d be stepping out for a quick minute, plenty of time for him to play postman. What else did you tell him? Tell him where Morse lives? Thursday’s address? Hm? You’ve taken money for less.”

“I’m giving you one chance to walk away, Jim.” Jakes was breathing heavily, a tinge of red entering his face. He looked borderline feral. “I’m telling you. Take it.”

_“How much did he pay you, Peter?!”_

Jakes let out an enraged shout and threw himself at Strange, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and trying to wrestle him down. Thursday was bellowing something incomprehensible and a door slammed down the hall near Bright’s office. Thunder cracked the sky apart. Morse didn’t know how or why, but he moved, shouting Jakes’ name and rushing into the fray, grabbing his shoulder and trying to pry him away. Thursday’s voice said his name. Bright was yelling from the doorway.

“Jakes, stop this!” Morse grappled for a better hold, nearly able to separate the two. “This is what Gull wants! He wants us fighting, he wants us turning on each other-”

“Get off me!” Jakes roared, forgoing Strange to throw him aside.

That did it.

Perhaps in the heat of the moment he underestimated the force he used, but it was too late. Jakes had pushed Morse hard enough to send him over Strange’s desk, cups and pens clattering to the floor as Morse tumbled over it and into the back of the chair, bringing it down with him as he hit the ground with a pained groan. His hands immediately flew to the hip he’d been shot in years before, pain flaring from the point where the arm of the chair caught him on the way down. His abused ribs from the night before announced their dissent with a wave of dull throbbing.

Thursday immediately flew to him, dropping to his knees. “Morse!”

Jakes stood frozen, staring with abject horror. “Oh God, Morse, I-”

His hesitation was enough for Strange to land a pulled punch to his jaw. Not enough to break it. Enough to hurt. Jakes dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks.

“For Christ’s sake, Strange!” Blatant shock was plastered all across Thursday’s face.

“What in God’s name is going on in my station?!” Bright shouted shrilly over the din of thunder and scuffling.

Strange looked mortified. Jakes and Morse both on the floor, Thursday attempting to pull the latter into a sitting position as Morse’s face tightened with pain. He stared at his fisted hands and thrust them into his pockets, partially in disbelief about what just happened, partly in denial because he caused it.

Jakes unsteadily rose to his feet, rubbing the reddening side of his face. “It’s my fault, sir.”

“Jakes?” Bright phrased it as both a surprised exclamation and an interrogative question.

“I said something and it was taken the wrong way,” Jakes stared past the chief superintendent to Strange, meeting his eyes firmly. “We just had a bit of a misunderstanding. Got a bit rough. Isn’t that right?”

“Sir.” Strange nodded to Bright, humbled into silence.

Morse had succeeded in escaping Thursday’s paternal fretting, limping slightly and definitely favouring his right leg as he made his way less than effectively to the door.

“Morse, I’m so sorry-” Jakes began, reaching a hand out to brush against his arm, hardly enough to stop him.

“I need some air.” the response was tight lipped, aimed at no one in particular. He flinched away from Jakes’ hand and vanished into the dark hall.

Bright stared after him. “What’s wrong with Morse?”

 _Got thrown over a desk, he did._ Strange almost said. “He was just trying to stop us. It was an accident.”

Jakes’ eyebrows flew up, surprised that the man who punched him in the face was now making excuses for him. He lowered his head.

Bright sighed heavily. “I’m not in the habit of reprimanding my men when we need all hands on deck so as long as you all can make nice and move on I won’t say another word on the matter. This is a terrible business, tensions are high, I’m sure. We’re under a certain amount of pressure to catch Mason Gull and I don’t need my best men losing their heads. I need to speak with Inspector Thursday, the rest of you can call it a night. Someone needs to make sure Morse gets home alright, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Jakes nodded, grabbing his coat from his chair and preparing to leave.

“Jakes.” Thursday stopped him. His weathered expression was turning grave. “Keep an eye on him. Keep him safe.”

“With my life, sir,” Jakes cast a significant look at Strange before departing.

Strange’s shoulders sagged and he moved toward his desk, straightening his chair and picking up an assortment of broken and scattered items. He wouldn’t readily admit it, but half of the things he said weren’t truly meant. Taken out of context, anyone could look like an enemy. But he’d been angry. He needed someone to blame, someone to fight, because Mason Gull wasn’t there for him to knock the daylights out of.

“Thursday, whenever you’re ready to give your report.” Bright said, taking a final look around the room before he left, shaking his head tiredly.

“Sir, I just wanted to say-” Strange began, turning to Thursday, but the inspector put a hand up, silencing him.

“Whatever apology you have planned for me, give it to Jakes.” he gathered his hat from his office and adjusted some papers on Morse’s desk. “He’s a good man with good intentions. He’s got his problems like any of us, but we all know he’s working them out. He’s not yellow and certainly no traitor. Maybe one day he’ll tell you why he wasn’t at Blenheim Vale that night and you’ll understand then why I don’t blame him.  Sometimes he gets crude, steps out of line, and we check him when he needs it. But not like this. Understood?”

Strange nodded. “I’ll head over to Morse’s in a bit, catch Jakes there. We can take watch in shifts.”

Thursday gave him an approving look and reached into his pocket for his notebook and pen, copying down the address and handing it to Strange. “Don’t you go losing this.”

———

The fog outside was dense, almost out of place in the city, weaving around the buildings, curling over Morse’s feet like something straight off a moor. The air was damp, the rain reduced to a mist, gentle against his bruised throat and tired body. Each step was laboured, but gradually improving.

It didn’t feel real, the altercation in the station. He knew these men, worked with them every day, and never saw them act out in that way. Then again, it wasn’t every day that their city was being terrorized by a serial killer. And one of their own was the next target.

He was.

Odd. Morse didn’t feel like a dead man walking. Not marked or condemned. Just…exhausted. Hurting. Tired. Too emotionally drained from the events of the past twenty four hours to even register the impending tidal wave of dread about to crest over him.

His shoulders began to tense with the familiar feeling that he was being watched. Footsteps began to sound behind him, drawing nearer and nearer. Heartbeat quickening, he turned around, reaching for a weapon he didn’t have.

“Morse!”

It was only Jakes, steadily jogging toward him and coming to a stop a few steps away. He looked mildly disheveled, no doubt due to the fight, and his jaw was turning fairly red where Strange struck him.

“What do you want?” Morse couldn’t help but say acerbically, barely attempting to mask his bitterness.

Jakes’ shoulders hunched inward. “I wanted to apologize. I’m really sorry, I never meant for-”

“It’s fine.” Morse found himself saying, if not only to make him stop talking. It was enough to see Strange and him fighting, another for Jakes to be so cowed as to run out an apologize for his actions. Too many unfamiliar things. He forced a tight smile. “Doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

Jakes appeared conflicted, unsure whether to believe this or not, but he seemed to accept the reprieve and exhaled, relieved. “Look, Bright said I’m to see you home. You’re not far, are you?”

Morse blinked. “You don’t have to do that, I’m fine-”

“This isn’t some charity thing, alright, I’m following orders.” Jakes said adamantly. “And if you think you’re going anywhere unaccompanied after that rose business then you’re almost as mad as Gull.”

“Charming.” Morse scoffed slightly, turning to walk away from him.

Jakes cursed and followed him, grabbing his shoulder to stop him. “Christ, I’m sorry, okay? I’m trying my best here, I really am. But could you put your pride aside for one moment and let me do my damn job?”

 _You want to talk about pride?_ Morse thought, incredulous, thinking back to the earlier altercation. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Maybe it was something in Jakes’ face, how tired he looked, different under the glow of streetlights and haze of the light rain. There was something strangely familiar, something he’d seen not too long ago, gas lamps in a pub, autumnal chill, and Jakes. Wretched and helpless. All that had just been dragged up and thrown in his face in the worst possible way. He sighed, feeling slightly defeated.

Jakes must have sensed this because he took his chance to press his argument. “What were you planning to do, anyway? Walk? Take the late bus?”

“I was going to drive.”

“You haven’t got any keys.”

“How do you know?”

“Well you don’t, do you?”

Morse felt like throwing his hands up in the air, but decided it would probably hurt too much. “Fine. What do you propose I do?”

Jakes produced a set of car keys from his pocket. “Let me drive you home.”

———

Morse fit his keys into the front door of the building and held the door for Jakes so he could come in behind him. The old stairs creaked with years of constant use and the less than agreeable weather. It took only a few moments to reach his flat on the top floor and as he worked to unlock it, he cast a glance toward Monica’s rooms, no sliver of light under the door to indicate she was awake or even home.

“Who lives there?” Jakes asked inquisitively, following his gaze.

Morse turned away and pushed his own door open, clearing his throat. “A friend.”

“Didn’t know you had any of those.”

“Maybe I don’t.” he shot back, realizing that it didn’t make much sense.

Jakes must have given him an odd look but Morse didn’t see it. He stepped into his small flat and reached for the nearest lamp through the dark, flicking it on and illuminating the single room. If Jakes was judging him for his frugal state of living, he didn’t look to see it on his face, focusing on seeking out a glass and getting some water from the tap before taking his coat off. As he shrugged his arms out of the sleeves, turning a bit, he stifled a groan, wincing as he had to gingerly peel it off sleeve by sleeve. Jakes looked up from across the room from where he was sorting through the stack of LPs on the side table.

“I thought you said it didn’t hurt.”

“It doesn’t.” Morse lied brusquely, draping the coat across the back of the nearest chair and finishing his glass of water.

“Why are you lying?”

“Why didn’t you just say who you called?” Morse shot back without fully meaning to, regretting it as soon as he did. But he couldn’t show it so he stared at Jakes, stony faced.

Jakes gave an exasperated sigh. “You haven’t got a couch I can kip on, suppose I’ll just stand in the hall, make sure no trouble comes up those stairs.”

Changing the subject. Avoiding it. Morse shook his head and turned away from him. “If you’re allowed to be such a hypocrite I think I’m permitted to lie a bit.”

“You-” Jakes started, then stopped himself. He toed at the foot of a chair and moved to the doorway, leaning against the frame. “Fine. I didn’t want to say it in front of everyone but you’ve got no one to tell so I suppose it’s alright. I’ve got this girl. I don’t want her caught up in any of this business, figure if I don’t talk about her, she doesn’t have to exist in this part of my life. The bad parts. That make sense?”

He almost thought it didn’t, until he remembered the Thursdays hall stand policy. Mickey Carter and Vic Kaspar. Morse understood. He nodded silently.

“I’m sorry, Jakes.” Sorry for Strange. Sorry for doubting him. “I’m glad you’ve got someone that special to you, though. You deserve that.” It was sincerely meant.

Jakes’ face exhibited something along the lines of a smile. “Look, you just…” he took his eyes off the floor. “Just call me Peter. I think we’re at that point now, don’t you?”

Morse really didn’t know the answer to that but he crossed the small space to shake his hand, smiling back tiredly. “Alright, then, Peter.”

Jakes handed him one of his sidearms. “Keep this close and give a shout if anything goes pear-shaped.”

“Will do.” Morse promised, and Jakes closed the door behind him.

He latched it shut and turned off the lamp, setting the gun on his nightstand and falling into his unmade bed, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh. The day felt long and short at the same time, almost difficult to process. Monica and tea. Connie and the river. Hospital. Station. The rose. _Pas de deux._ A haunting promise of the future, a morbid fortune.

The flat creaked and groaned like a ship at sea as the wind outside picked up, a new bout of rain pelting the windows. Thunder rumbled, shaking the panes, and Morse pulled his blankets atop himself, even more thankful for the sweater Thursday gave him. It wasn’t unusual for Morse to fall asleep in his clothes, and he certainly wasn’t inclined to change between his exhaustion and aching body. Suddenly, he understood the plight of punching bags, what it was like to be pummeled like a rock the ocean waves threw themselves up against. A dramatic analogy, but appropriate.

He closed his eyes, the sound of the wind and rain fading as sleep began to overtake him. Somewhere, out in the storm, was Mason Gull, plotting his next abduction, his next murder. There were three more left, and he intended Morse to be one of them.

With that less than comforting thought, he drifted off to sleep.

Drifted off to sleep without ever having noticed the few erroneous drops of liquid in the bottom of his glass.

Drifted off to sleep, unable to hear the sound of the window inching open amidst the raging storm.


	8. Morse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and you shall receive! I put a massive rush on things to get this chapter up only a few days after the previous one which is kind of crazy but in a good way. There’s likely going to be a reasonable week or so gap between the upcoming chapters just because of how busy my personal life is and the research that’s going into making the content as accurate and descriptive as I can make it be. Like I’m actually creating a psychological profile of Gull using the terminology and available methods of the 1960s (I’ve taken psych and criminology, leave me alone, I’m a nerd) and using that to accurately depict him and his mindset, beliefs, etc which is kind of unnecessary but I just want it to be realistic?  
> Also, finally, I just want to apologize to Morse. I’m sorry. Truly.  
> \- Milo

Jakes stood outside of Morse’s flat, leaning against the wall and flicking the lid of his silver lighter open and shut to entertain himself as time crawled by, lethargically moving along. Someone down the hall was having what sounded like a one sided argument but it was more likely that he was just on the phone with someone. He let his head fall back against the wall with a light _tap._ How Morse could sleep through it was beyond him.

He traced his finger along the shape of the number six on the door, his nail catching on the bolt that was used to screw it into the door. Jakes sighed and leaned back against the wall which was painted a frustrating colour. It was either red or orange or an incredibly ambiguous combination of the two.

The glass chimneys around the lights on the wall sconces were in dire need of dusting and the white paint on the radiator beneath the hall window was chipped in several places. He wouldn’t particularly consider himself as someone obsessed with cleanliness, but he had an urge to go berate the landlord about the sconces and radiator. Hell, even the paint on the walls. Just to have something to do.

Sure, he _was_ doing something. He was watching over Morse. Rather, he was standing outside in the hall and manning the door because it seemed far more decent and less uncomfortable than sitting in those hard backed chairs for hours while his colleague slept a few feet away. Jakes made a face. The thought of it was unpleasant.

But since standing in the hall all night playing sentinel was the way to keep Morse safe from Gull, Jakes quieted the dissenting voices in his head and focussed on remaining awake and alert.

The front door downstairs opened and closed and a familiar voice reached his ears. Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and Jakes watched with silent apprehension until he was sure of who it was. Even then, he remained on his toes, unsure of what was to come of this interaction.

“Wotcher,” he nodded to Strange and shut his lighter, stowing it in his pocket along with his hands. He could tell the man was tense, he was as well. After all, it hadn’t been more than an hour or two since they’d been at each other’s throats. Jakes took a glance at his watch to confirm this thought. Two hours. It was nearing eight.

“How’s the face?” Strange asked somewhat awkwardly, gesturing at the light bruise with a rain soaked newspaper he used to cover his head as he came up the walkway.

Jakes shrugged, giving off an air of indifference followed by one of his usual witty smiles. “Other than the damage to my stunning good looks, I’m fine. ‘Least I’m not a glass jaw.”

Strange snorted, comforted by the humour. “Lucky for us both. They’d have been after my head.”

“And your badge.”

“That too.” Strange nodded quietly. He paused for a moment, looking around the hall, almost as if he was scanning for witnesses, before turning back to the fellow sergeant. “Look, matey, I was out of line earlier, no mistakes about it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have doubted you like that. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen, Morse, you, I’m just-” he shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. “This is bloody terrible, you know? I’d take a stack of traffic violations and a year on general duties over any of this. Too many lives have been ruined by this maniac already. It’s getting to my head. I’m sorry.”

Jakes was taken aback by the sincerity of the apology. It didn’t seem coached or scripted, not something Thursday drilled into his head and sent him off to repeat. It was genuine, and that was what got his attention.

A small, shriveled, petty part of his being wanted him to still be angry, burning with at least a spark of the rage he had before, needed it, thrived on it. But he gave Strange a once over, taking in his rumpled, damp clothing and the corner of a crumpled sandwich wrapper sticking out of his pocket, the flecks of mud on his polished shoes. He looked worn down the same way a knife was dull, still keen and determined, just a bit of the edge taken off it.

Jakes crushed the errant ember under the heel of a metaphorical shoe. Making up his mind, he withdrew one of his hands from his pockets and stuck it toward Strange in a diplomatic manner. “Let bygones be bygones. How about it?”

He was granted a questioning look in return. “You’re sure?”

Jakes inclined his head, broadening his smile. He extended his hand some more. “Put it there, Jim.”

They shook hands and the atmosphere seemed to lighten in spite of the storm.

“So how’d you get inside?” Jakes asked him. “You don’t have a key.”

Strange shrugged. “Landlady was trying to clean up the mud in the foyer, all I had to do was knock and say I was on police business. I got lucky, I would’ve buzzed up to see if you or Morse would let me in but I didn’t want to wake anyone. He’s sleeping, isn’t he?”

“I’d be surprised if he wasn’t, given the day he’s had.” Jakes replied, taking the newspaper from Strange and searching the smudged ink for anything interesting. A fluff piece on some horticulturalist event written up by Dorothea Frazil, updates on the new membership with the European Economic Community, nothing particularly eye catching. “I haven’t heard a sound, anyhow.”

“And he’s alright?”

Jakes felt for the paper box in his pocket. He was gasping for a cigarette but decided that smoking in the building would likely get them thrown out by the landlady, police business or not. “Would you be?”

“Fair enough.” Strange leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “Reckon we should take watch in shifts.”

“I’m fine.” said Jakes.

“Suit yourself.”

A few hours passed and absolutely nothing happened. The phone argument had long since ceased and the landlady came round to dim the hall lights just before midnight, casting the two officers curious looks and trying to crane her neck around the two to see just whose door it was they were guarding. If gossip was a flame, they were petrol. Jakes and Strange were able to exchange small talk to pass the time, working on some of the newspaper’s crossword puzzle.

It wasn’t until a bit after one in the morning that another sound was made, the front door creaking open and shutting quietly.

Jakes’ eyelids, once heavy with sleep, were now wide open. He got to his feet and looked to Strange. “Someone’s in early.”

“I’ll check it out.” Strange volunteered softly, glancing toward the stairs. “Look in on Morse, would you?”

Jakes nodded, appreciative of the fact that their mutual trust had been restored.

Strange set off as silently as he could and Jakes turned to Morse’s door, trying the handle and finding it locked. The idiot had shut him out. Then again, it probably was a safe idea, just inconvenient for Jakes who needed immediate entry. He tried the handle again, rattling it in hopes of throwing the lock loose, but to no avail.

“Morse?” Jakes ventured, hoping his voice carried through the door. “You alright in there?”

There was no response. He tried the door again.

Jakes waited a minute before he gave a frustrated sigh a pulled out the key he’d filched from a cup on Morse’s shelf while he was looking at the records. Thankfully it fit, and he pushed the door open, blinking his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the flat.

Nothing seemed recognizable in the shadows even though it was already unfamiliar to begin with. Chairs and tables didn’t seem to match, their shapes distorted by the lack of light. The first thing Jakes really noticed was that the place was much colder than before and smelled oddly of rain. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and a cool gust of wind swept through the room, Jakes’ blood running cold as he turned, seeking out the source. Dread built in the pit of his stomach, afraid of what he would see.

The window was wide open, the curtains fluttering like spectral beings trying to flee the room. Rain was spilling over the sill and into the sink basin, the wind whistling like an old tea kettle. He could see the vague outline of the railing of the fire escape.

Morse never mentioned having one. Did he even know?

“Morse?”

Again, no reply.

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Jakes looked to the rumpled, barely visible form on the bed, and took another step into the flat. The sight did little to calm him, it looked more like blankets and less than a gangly policeman. Something soft crunched under his shoe and he blanched, quickly looking down to see what he had stepped on.

A red rose.

The floor was littered with them. Petals, thorns, at least two bouquets worth.

“Oh my,” a lazy, drawling voice said from the shadows, sounding ever so slightly exasperated. “There was only supposed to be one of you.”

Before Jakes could even react, there was a sharp blow to his temple, and the room grew much darker until there was nothing to be seen at all.

“Ah,” Mason Gull said, a surprised smile unfurling on his face as he looked down at the unconscious form of Peter Jakes, a sedentary trail of blood making its way across his brow. “You again.”

———

Strange descended the stairs and ran into a familiar face.

Monica Hicks was coming up the steps, still in her nurse’s uniform, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.

“Morning, Miss Hicks,” Strange greeted cordially, his smile sincere, if not just because he was glad it was a friend rather than foe he confronted on the staircase.

“Hello there,” Monica smiled back, looking mildly confused before recognition dawned on her. “Oh, you’re that policeman, aren’t you? You came by when Morse was-” _Imprisoned._ “-taken away. I’m so sorry, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

“D.S Strange,” he shook her hand pleasantly. “Let me walk you up.”

“I’ll be glad of the company.” Monica took a sip of her coffee and walked with him up the stairs. “So what brings you here in the odd hours of the morning?”

“I could ask you the same.”

She looked down at her uniform and the cup of coffee then back to the officer. “Graveyard shift.”

“Ah,” Strange nodded, internally chiding himself. Obviously. He recovered quickly and smiled. “I’m just keeping watch on Morse. He received a threat yesterday afternoon, we’re trying to make sure it isn’t delivered upon.”

No sooner had the words been spoken that he heard a heavy thud from the floor above, followed by some scuffling. Their eyes flew upward and Strange immediately drew his weapon, causing Monica to let out a startled gasp.

“Stay here, Miss Hicks,” he ordered, rushing up the stairs, his heart in his throat. _Please, God, please no. I’ve only stepped away for a moment. Please no._

Strange made it to the floor in moments, bursting into the hall to find his worst fears realized.

The door to Morse’s flat was wide open, but it hadn’t been forced, there were no wood splinters and a key was fitted into the lock from the outside. What drew his attention was the pair of legs protruding from the doorway, connected to a sprawling figure.

_Jakes._

He surged forward, bracing himself against the doorway and looking at the scene before him and wanting to yell something obscene, punch the wall, anything.

Sergeant Jakes was on the floor, a knot forming on his forehead, the skin split, and a smear of red trailing off like a comet as a rogue drop of blood journeyed across his pale face, evidence that he’d been pistol whipped. Hard. At least two dozen roses were strewn across the ground of the small one room flat, and the window was thrown open, apparently allowing more than just rain in. He ran inside to the bed, throwing the mess of blankets and sheets aside in a fruitless attempt to find the man that once inhabited them. The mattress and pillow were cold, but the state of things suggested that the bed was slept in. The occupant, however, was absent. Not just from the bed, but the room itself.

A broken watch lay atop the pillow, the leather wristband laid out straight. He recognized it as Morse’s. The face was smashed but when Strange held it in the light from the hall, he could tell the time it was broken at. Nine exactly.

What did that mean? Did Gull really have four hours on them? He must have only just been there in order to strike at Jakes.

But Morse didn’t have to be.

And then it sank in. Amidst the panic and dread, the thoughts broke through, truth breaching the surface.

Morse was gone. Taken. Stolen away. His bed was cold, the flat freezing, window wide open, watch broken. His coat hung on the back of a chair, shoes cast off haphazardly by the nightstand. These were not the actions of a man who left his home willingly. Detective Constables didn’t vanish like this. They didn’t disappear like odd socks or children at the market, keys when they were needed or time when there wasn’t enough. They didn’t slip away, fade into the woodwork. Certainly not Morse.

Hours. Nine o’clock. It was past one. He’d been gone for hours. Gull could have come back any time after that to execute the second half of his plan, leaving behind his morbid little clues and taunts. Setting the stage for when the door did finally open.

“Morse!” Strange shouted, not caring if he woke the whole hall. “Morse!”

He ran to the window and stuck his head out. There was no one on the fire escape and the street lamps showed no vehicles on the road. Nothing down below save for puddles and rubbish bins. An ocean of fog obscured anything beyond.

No sign of anyone.

He didn’t expect anything more than that.

“Sergeant?”

Monica’s voice came from the hall and only a few seconds passed before she appeared in the doorway, her hand passing over her face to stifle her shocked cry. She staggered backward and nearly dropped her cup, eyes falling to Jakes and the roses, then traveling back to Strange.

She cautiously stepped around Jakes’ body before Strange could prevent her from doing otherwise and sought out the nearest lamp, flicking it on and throwing the room into light.  

“Miss Hicks, I-” but the words ceased when he saw the full extent of what was left behind.

There was a glass on the table with an empty syringe sat in it like a bizarre cocktail umbrella and the fragments of a broken phial, residual drops of clear liquid clinging to them. Wet footprints were tracked across the floor and went up to Morse’s bed before turning back to the window where they originated.

Monica was kneeling by Jakes, checking his pulse with slightly shaking hands.

“How is he?”  Strange dared ask, moving to stand above his fallen colleague. The blood had begun to pool around his eye where it was slowly crusting, flecking his eyelashes.

She sat back on her heels and sighed with relief, but it wasn’t enough to eradicate the terror that the scene inflicted on her. “Just unconscious. He’ll have a nasty headache when he wakes. But there’s something you should see.”

Strange crossed over to the two and followed her hand to where it was pointing. A copper coin was nestled in the hollow of Jakes’ throat, bobbing slightly with his light breaths. A wave of nausea swept over him as he interpreted the vague threat behind it, a taunt from Gull. _I could have  done so much worse. I could have killed you. But I didn’t. Consider yourself lucky._ And it was true. In spite of everything, it was. Jakes was alive. Count the angels on the head of a pin.

He wanted to beat himself up and succumb to the guilt that threatened to overtake him. If he hadn’t stepped away, gone to check who was coming in, they might have stood a chance. They could have gotten Gull. Morse was long gone, the watch and sheets told as much, but the loss would not have been as great. They’d have something to go on. The madman would be off the streets.

But they were not that fortunate. Gull was on the run.

And he had Morse.

Taking a closer look at the coin, Strange noticed that it was different than the ones they’d received before, the ones that were slowly collecting space on the ledge of the evidence board. Rather than two letters, or even numbers, there was a question mark stamped into it.

 _See what I’ve done?_ It seemed to ask, a cruel smile painted invisibly in the air. _I’ve pulled one over you again. See what I’ve done? Do you see? How do you feel knowing you could have prevented this? Not so savvy, are you, OCP?_

_What do you think will happen next?_

Strange swallowed heavily, taking the coin with shaking fingers. “I need to call the station.”

Monica closed her eyes and nodded. “I’ll fetch some smelling salts.”

———

After catching Bright up on the condition of Constance Brooks, her clue, and the rose delivered by Gull, the two men shared a solemn, grave moment, before Thursday was dismissed, sent home at his usual time.

Driving was moderately hellish given the state of roads, all owing to the barely ceasing downpour and the steadily building fog. The late night news anchor on the radio had little to offer other than the obvious information one could gather by glancing out their window.

Thursday grumbled and turned off the radio, journeying in silence.

Arriving back home after the day he’d had felt like finding a welcoming port in the middle of a tempest. Thursday parked the car along the street and held his hat firmly on his head, rushing up the front walk and into the shelter of the house.

It ended up being a relatively peaceful night in the Thursday household despite the underlying tensions that created a restless environment in the inspector's mind. Win was just about finished making stew and dumplings, offering Sam a cap of cooking sherry in exchange for his help, something he happily was bragging about to Joan who was camped out by the dining room radio, searching for a music station that hadn’t been replaced by static or weather warnings. Thursday smiled warmly and hung his hat and coat in the hall, allowing the atmosphere of the home to ease away his worries if only for a few moments.

Win was overjoyed when Fred told her of Morse’s reaction to the sweater and socks and how he sent his regards. She beamed happily and announced that she intended to make one for Sam, sending a mortified look across their son’s face and their daughter into fits of laughter until she was threatened with a new headband.

It wasn’t until much later, when everyone was snug in their beds, that Fred was able to break the news to Win. Although bleak and grim, the moments before sleep when he sat in bed beside his wife and had someone he loved and trusted to confide in were his favourite of the day. He didn’t have to be secretive or dishonest. The hallstand’s boundaries stretched and the truth came out. He told her about the three deaths, the girl they saved, and the threats Morse received. Win’s face grew heavy as she listened intently, her small hand making its way to her husband’s shoulder as he sighed, leaning back against the pillows and allowing himself to be worried, hell, even a little afraid. Afraid for what would happen if Gull remained unchallenged. Morse was their only adequate weapon against him, as crude as it sounded. He was Ariadne and her golden thread leading them through the Minotaur’s labyrinth. He was their guide through the maze of madness, their sole chance at victory. But on top of that, he was only a man. He wasn’t suited to carry Atlas’s burden, hold the sky on his shoulders, even though Gull had made him think so, made him believe that every life lost, every life threatened, was something Morse had to bear. The responsibility of saving them was his because he was the only one that could.

It wasn’t bloody fair.

Eventually, Thursday fell asleep, lapsing into uneasy dreams about fog cloaked streets and the murderer that roamed them. He was just about to lay his hands on the figure shrouded in darkness, had finally gotten the jump on him- when the phone rang, yanking him forcefully into wakefulness.

Win stirred against his side, one of the curlers in her hair coming undone as she sat up, blinking sleepily. “Who could be calling at this hour? It wouldn’t be work, would it?”

Thursday was on his feet in an instant. “Morse.”

Win’s hand rose to her mouth. “Oh, goodness. Fred-”

But he was already moving, too quick to hear the rest of what she had to say, the same worry fueling him. He flicked on the hall light and made his way down the stairs as best he could by the light that filtered from above, reaching the front hall and grasping for the receiver in the dark, finding it just as another ring sounded.

He picked it up and pressed it to his ear, heart racing like a horse on the tracks. “Inspector Thursday.”

 _“Inspector, it’s DS Strange,”_ came the voice of the sergeant from the other end, extremely rushed and laced with panic. _“I’ve just phoned the station, they know, and I’ve arranged for someone to fetch DeBryn, but I figured it was only right to call you in person-”_

“Out with it, sergeant.” Thursday said sharply, almost breathlessly, effectively ceasing the officer’s rambling. He needed him to get to the point, needed to know, needed to know what was so urgent he had to call in the dead of night-

There was a pregnant pause. Hesitation.

 _“He’s- he’s gone, sir. Morse. Morse is gone. From the state of the place it looks like he was taken hours ago. Gull was just here, though, he came back to set the place up and-”_ Strange stopped to take a breath. _“Jakes took a nasty blow to the head. I have Morse’s neighbour, Nurse Hicks, here tending to him. I’m so sorry, sir. He came in through the window up the fire escape. No one knew about it, we didn’t know to cover it. I’m so sorry. I-”_

Thursday didn’t know what Strange was because the phone fell from his numb hand, receiver swinging from the cord and clattering against the wall. A sharp ringing pierced his ears and the man staggered forward, bracing himself against the wall and staring blankly at the space before him. He shut his eyes firmly and grit his teeth against the onslaught of raging, furious thoughts that clouded his find, forcing any logic and comprehension aside, replacing them only with raw emotion. Panic. Anger. Fear.

Then one thought cut through everything like a crack running through a pane of glass.

_Morse._

_Morse._

_Morse was gone._

_“Sir?”_ Strange’s urgent voice came from the phone. _“Sir?”_

Thursday unfroze and fumbled for the receiver. “Are you at his flat?”

_“Yes, sir. Forensics should be arriving any moment.”_

“I’ll be right there.” He hung up.

“Dad?”

Thursday turned around to see Joan standing in her pyjamas on the third step, clutching the railing, her eyes wide with anxiety. “Dad, what’s happened?”

Win was on her way down as well, joining her daughter. Her face was fraught with immeasurable concern and Thursday blamed himself for putting it there. “Fred?”

He couldn’t force himself to say the words, moving past them to get ready to leave. But his silence spoke volumes. As he opened a drawer to get his clothes, he heard a sob from downstairs, followed by a sharp gasp.

Thursday’s soul was heavy with defeat.

———

They managed to rouse Jakes fairly easily. Monica broke a smelling salt from its package and wafted it under the man’s nose for a few moments which was all the time it took to work. Jakes’ eye flew open and sat sat bolt upright, coughing and batting Monica’s hand away as he caught his breath, head whipping rapidly as he slowly recalled where he was.

He hissed behind gritted teeth, reaching to touch his forehead where Monica had applied a bandage only moments before after cleaning out the cut. He prodded the material and winced at the sharp shock of pain that lanced across his temple. “Bastard!”

“Here,” Monica said softly, pressing a damp cloth into his hand. “You’ll want to get that blood away from your eye.”

Jakes accepted the cloth and began wiping at the dried blood, frowning at the streaks of red that came away. “Who are you again?”

“Friend of Morse’s.”

“The neighbour?” he remembered Morse saying something about the person across the way.

An ephemeral smile ghosted across her face. “That’s right. Monica. I’m a nurse.”

“Where’s-” he looked around for Strange and saw him by the phone, placing it back on the hook, his shoulders slumping heavily. Jakes sat back against the wall, his head suddenly feeling very light. “Strange, please tell me-”

But Strange shook his head, denying his request. “I’m sorry, matey. Morse is gone. Been gone for a while.”

Jakes’ brow knit together in frantic confusion and he made to stand, glancing around the small space, but Monica’s hands stilled him, pushing him back down. He let out a clipped, frustrated shout, slamming the palm of his hand into the floor. “Damn it, how is that possible?! No one came in or out, we made sure-” And then it all came back to him. What he’d seen when he walked into the flat. The realization felt like a punch to the gut. “The window. He came in through the window.”

“Fire escape.” Strange elborated. “Between the storm and the voices down the hall, we weren’t to have heard a thing. Gull was efficient, looks like he drugged Morse with something, took him without a sound. Came back a few hours later to set out the roses and whatnot and that’s when he got you.”

He closed his eyes in an attempt to quell the pounding in his head but it only grew louder. “I saw him. He had the gun I gave Morse. Could have killed me but I don’t think he planned on it. Gull- he said there was only meant to be one of us, I don’t think he expected the two of us to be watching the flat. Maybe he knew you’d have to go down to check on whoever came through the door.”

“Me.” Monica said meekly.

Jakes and Strange exchange a silent look, mutually decided that it was best not to comment on that.

“I called the station, forensics should be here any minute with DeBryn. Thursday’s on his way as well.” said Strange, changing the subject only slightly but just enough.

He could see it clearly now, Thursday with his hat and pipe, descending upon them with the silent fury of a blazing inferno.

 _Keep him safe._ His flintlock eyes would say. _That’s all you had to do._

All of the shame in the world was not enough, Jakes decided. Not enough to even remotely portray how he felt.  

He failed Thursday.

He failed _Morse._

_God, what did that cost?_

_Morse’s life?_

He didn’t want to think about it. But there was no other option. It was all that mattered.

“Say kind words at my funeral.” Jakes set the cloth aside, reaching for the nearest rose and ripping the head off it, dropping the petals in a disgraced pile on the floor and hurling the stem at a chair. “I doubt I’m going to live to see the sun rise once the governor gets here.”

“Don’t say that, Peter.”

Jakes glared at him. “Strange. Morse is _missing._ In the hands of a murderer who is going to _kill him._ He didn’t step out for a walk and I accidentally let him slip past. He was under _my bloody watch.”_

Strange hung his head, trying to force a comforting look onto his face. “We’re both to blame.”

He gave a single derisive laugh, his expression closed off to his companions. “You go ahead and believe that.”

No one said a word. Jakes didn’t expect them to. Instead, the motley trio sat and stood in silence until the buzzer on the wall sounded and Strange hurried down to admit forensics and reinforcements.

Two officers canvassed the alley while one took Monica aside so she could give her statement. Jakes was near enough to glean a few scraps of information before being swept aside like flotsam in the tide of activity that was uncharacteristic of the cramped living quarters.

According to Monica, the fire escape hadn’t even been installed until about two months ago after safety complaints were made. Apparently the less than adequate heating had led to more than a few tenants lighting small fires or candles and rather than address the initial concern, building management shifted to fire safety. Someone’s cousin or other did end up fixing the heat, but the stairs were already built.

Morse wasn’t even home to know that happened.

The world had changed in the months without him, grew into something maladaptive and far more dangerous. Like an incessantly present ivy sprig that refused to be tamed by any measure of pruning, slipping into the most inconvenient of fractures and turning them into chasms wide enough to swallow up the best of men. The shadows became deeper. The walls became weaker. Promotions, fire escapes, Broadmoor. The spinning axis of life remained constant even with him taken out of rotation. And suddenly, he was placed back, a spring bulb in the thawed ground.

Now, the plant was torn out by its roots. Only this time, the world didn’t keep spinning.

It shattered.


	9. Virgil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. 
> 
> Surrender as you enter every hope you have.
> 
> Dante's Inferno, Canto 3

Dorothea Frazil wrapped her peacoat tighter around herself as she unlocked the door to her office, flicking the switch and pausing for a few moments before the round light above her desk came on with a light hum. The whitewashed brick walls were a pale blue in the early morning light and she allowed herself a small smile at the brief serenity it provided.

She always came in first as editor, making sure the radiator was doing its work, setting a brew on with the percolator and helping herself to a few biscuits before finally getting to her own office. Dorothea hung her coat up and smoothed the back of her skirt before taking a seat and flipping through the sheaf of advertisement specifications for the afternoon edition. There was Richardson’s, of course, a promotion for the local radio station, the promise of an unbeatable bargain at the used car lot down the way, only a few new ones, many of them their usual lot of sources.

The press was having a field day, as it were, what with the theatrical murders occurring as of late. It was the largest surge in serial killings Oxford had seen since the opera lunatic and the stocking strangler. The prison guard’s death made the front page yesterday. Morning edition. The warden absolutely stonewalled her when she attempted to get a comment or even an ID photograph to accompany the story.

Instead, there was a shot of the prison grounds from behind the police tape. The closest they could get. Even the ever reliant Sergeant Jakes refused to comment. ‘Off the record’ didn’t get her anywhere either. Tom, the crime correspondent who tagged along, went off to see if the pathologist on scene had anything to say on cause of death. Frazil searched for Morse with the slight, foolish hope that he’d have something to say on the matter, but Jakes put it to a stop, eventually telling her that he’d been attacked by the killer. Nothing too bad. Of course, she omitted that detail. Contrary to popular belief, she still had a relationship with decency.

He didn’t know how much she was truly fretting. After all, that was the night she saw Morse off to the Bodleian. She’d played an unknowing usher, taking him down the ever darkening path. Guilt was beginning to infringe on the edges of her thoughts.

Setting the papers aside to see if there was anything else of interest left by the midnight oil burners she frowned, her fingers skimming over an old edition of the Oxford Mail. It was folded in half, only a portion of the front page story, but the familiar headline stared back at her in bold block letters.

 **TOP OF THE COPS** , it read, and beneath it she saw one of her few regrets, the picture of a startled looking Constable Morse she directed her photographer to take after he refused to be interviewed about his choral performance.

 _“I’ve no wish to see my name in the papers, Miss Frazil,”_ he told her with a polite smile. She thought he was blowing her off, didn’t want to fraternize with the enemy. But he was sincerely modest about it.

And then she’d gone and made him the front page story.

She hadn’t known him well back in those days. A new face with a fair voice, a story in poorly ironed suits and shoes with ill concealed scuff marks.

 _How?_ she wondered, angling her head as she unfolded the paper, holding it up. It was years old, printed ages ago. She doubted there was even a copy in archives. The question, however, soon turned to _‘why?’_

Something hit the desk, something light, an envelope that had been tucked between the fold, falling loose when she opened it up.

“What on earth-” Frazil murmured, her eyes widening a bit as she put the paper aside, reaching for the envelope. There was no postmark in the corner, nothing written across for it, save her name, typed. It hadn’t gone through the post, that was certain.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Frazil reached for her letter opener and carefully slit the envelope open, shaking the contents out onto her desk.

It was a single photograph that had fallen on its front, the initials M.G signed neatly in the upper corner. Using the blade, she flicked it over to see the picture.

The knife fell to the desk.

She reached for the phone with a shaking hand.

“I need to speak to Inspector Thursday as a matter of urgency.”

———

“Ketamine,” DeBryn announced, looking up from his test results. “It was in the glass as well as the syringe. Undoubtedly the drug that was used to render Morse unconscious. It’s relatively new, only just been tested on humans last year for anesthetic purposes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Broadmoor had some in stock.”

Doctor DeBryn, Inspector Thursday, and Sergeant Jakes stood around a vacant autopsy table where three separate items were bagged or sealed in containers. The syringe, phial fragments, and the glass from Morse’s table. Jakes’ skull felt as if it were going to split in half at any moment but he didn’t say so, leaning forward against the table to steady himself, blinking to stay focused. Possible concussion. Something like that.

He remembered the shadow crossing the doorway as he sat slumped in one of Morse’s chairs as Monica cleaned the wound on his head, chiding him each time he flinched away from the peroxide.

Looking up, he saw Inspector Thursday standing rigidly, taking in the room as if it were a scene of mass carnage, each rose a victim. There was something on his face, something even darker than the night.

Rage.

Absolute, undiluted, incomprehensible rage.

Thursday had yelled. Shouted. Bellowed a wordless sound, and threw a chair down. It skittered across the floor and slammed into the wall. Strange blanched and looked warily toward Jakes before nodding respectfully to the inspector and excusing himself from the room before he could become collateral damage.

 _“Start a search team,”_ _Thursday ordered Strange between heavy breaths, suffocating the lung shattering coughs that were long due to emerge._ _“No stone unturned, do you understand me? We’ll get the descriptions to the Oxford Mail as soon as the sun rises.”_

“How did Gull manage to get in without waking him?” Thursday took the toxicology report, looking as if he was trying to make sense of something he didn’t understand one utter bit, setting the sheet down. “Man’s window is opened in the dead of night. Not exactly something you can sleep through.”

The glance he cast toward Jakes was virtually unmissable. _How could this happen._

“Oh, he had help,” DeBryn nodded, pushing the glass forward. “I thought that the ketamine in the glass might have been residual amounts from the syringe, but-” he crouched down and took a few items from the shelf beneath the table, setting two more identical glasses beside the first, a threadbare pillowcase, and a half finished bottle of cheap brandy. His eyes stormed behind his spectacles. “It’s in all of them, coated on the inside. All Morse had to do was take a drink. Powder residue on the pillowcase as insurance. Lay down to rest, take a deep breath, and lights out.”

He removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. His maroon bow tie was askew, the buttons of his cardigan put through the wrong holes. DeBryn left home in a rush, bolting to get dressed as soon as he answered the door. At first he’d been angry, grumbling nonsensical curses at whoever decided to rouse him at that ridiculous hour.

And then he’d been told those two words.

_It’s Morse._

“Dare I ask-?” DeBryn began, then thought better of it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The price of relief was the threat of despair. Thursday, however, astutely recognized the half formulated question.

The inspector shook his head. “No, doctor. We haven’t found a body. Not just yet, anyway.”

_But the day is young._

No one wanted to say it, but it was true. None of the victims had been held for very long, some not at all. They were staged and struck down without a lack of haste.

DeBryn’s imagination ran away from him and he made the mistake of picturing himself being called out to a scene, making his way past the tide of officers and seeking out the familiar faces he knew would be there. A pale hand outstretched, lying near his foot. Connected to an arm. Connected to a body. Light eyes thrown open in one final expression of fear, Morse’s freckled skin mottled with bruises that would never fade. 

He couldn’t reconcile with the idea that the next time he saw the man’s face would possibly be when he pulled back the sheet on an autopsy table. No more wan smiles or witty remarks. It didn’t seem right. It couldn’t be. 

DeBryn wasn’t one to be shaken easily. He dealt with death nearly every day, but there was something in him that allowed the accompanying emotions to remain settled until he could cast off the coat of professionalism and fall into his chair at home, a glass in hand, soft music playing. Physically, the things he faced never made him ill. But that one thought, that potentially prophetic image-

The phone in the corner rang, temporarily banishing it from his mind.

Thursday looked up, his attention summoned by the sharp sound.

Another ring.

Dread built in his chest and DeBryn swore not a single soul in the room dared to breathe. Jakes was nearest. He gave a nod to the sergeant who closed his eyes, steeling himself, and reached for the receiver, deftly bringing it to his ear. “Detective Sergeant Jakes.”

A brief pause. Then, he extended the phone to Thursday, his pale face drained of blood.

“It’s for you, sir.”

DeBryn sank into the nearest seat, his head suddenly heavy with the weight of all the morbid thoughts that immediately surged in.

Inspector Thursday stepped forward and accepted the phone with haste at first, but it quickly grew into hesitation. “Hello?”

 _“Inspector Thursday, thank goodness, I was told I could reach you here.”_ A woman’s voice spoke quickly, but there was familiarity behind the urgency.

“Miss Frazil?” He asked, already knowing the answer. There was no mistaking her identity.

 _“I walked into my office this morning and it was just there,”_ Frazil said, almost frantic. She wasn’t one to panic or fret. Something was truly amiss. But then again, wasn’t that true of everything now? _“I don’t know how he could have gotten in, the door was locked, nothing’s been broken-”_

“What is it?” Thursday pressed, impatient, the worry that this was somehow connected to Morse running in circles in his mind.

_“It’s Gull, isn’t it? Mason Gull. That’s who it’s been all this time.”_

A cold hand gripped his throat and he turned to Jakes, the seed of suspicion already beginning to stir in his chest. “Who told you?”

 _“Gull did.”_ Frazil eradicating his doubts in the officer, dashing then to pieces. _“He was_ here. _He left that newspaper, the one with the article I wrote about Morse. From when the opera murders began. There was a photograph left with a quote written on the back and the initials M.G.”_

The question emerged before he could prevent it. “Photograph?”

She took a shuddering breath. _“It’s- it’s Morse. He looks to be in a bad way.”_

Thursday almost dropped the phone, the feeling suddenly gone from his hands, replaced with only a cold, dreadful numbness.

_“Inspector?”_

He regained his composure for a brief moment, gripping the receiver tight. “Where are you now?”

_“Your office-”_

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Thursday ran from the room, Sergeant Jakes in tow, leaving behind a concerned and confused DeBryn who hurried to pick up the dangling phone and gather some form of an explanation from the woman on the other end.

With Jakes driving and the sirens wailing, they reached the station in minutes, the vehicle hardly pulled into the car park before Thursday was out and bounding up the steps, throwing open doors and pushing aside any poor sod who happened to be in his path, Jakes hurrying after him, surprised at the pace the senior officer was able to keep.

Bright stood in the bullpen, clearly waiting to act as an ambassador to Miss Frazil, but was promptly ignored as the two as they rushed into the office in their rain soaked coats and muddied shoes.

Dorothea Frazil turned to face them from where she sat in one of the chairs in front of Thursday’s desk, looking considerably shaken. Her face was pale as the morning light that strained to fit through the blinds over the window, not a word spoken from her suddenly parted lips. All she could do was gesture toward the small sheaf of papers she came to deliver. Jakes darted around Thursday’s frozen figure, the man unmoving as he stared at his desk with an unreadable face.

The photograph sat on top of the newspaper and Jakes pinched it between shaking fingers, feeling the tantalizing but horrifying curiosity that gripped Pandora as she opened the forbidden jar when he brought the picture up.

 _“Surrender as you enter every hope you have.”_ was written in dark ink, clearly a quote of some kind. Below the ominous inscription were the photographer’s initials, M.G for Mason Gull.

With the same impulse that gripped the daredevils who made their trade in jumping from great heights and performing death defying feats to morbidly intrigued audiences, he flipped the square of paper over, confronting another one of Gull’s works.

It was Morse, just as Thursday said Frazil had described. Guilt felt like a knife wedged between his ribs, and shock almost forced him to let it fall back onto the table, but he could not tear his eyes away for fear of abandoning him a second time.

The picture showed Morse sitting in a chair, although ‘sitting’ was too kind a word, not taking into account the ropes around his ankles and the awkward position of his arms, twisted behind him, undoubtedly bound in some manner. His erudite eyes were closed in something that was indistinguishable from death or sleep or whatever other state rested along that spectrum. Even in the colourless photograph the bruises on his exposed neck were dark and livid. His head was tilted back, leaning uncomfortably on his shoulder. It looked unnatural, almost posed, displaying the marks. Gone was his sweater, yet it had not been found at the flat. He only wore his slacks and undershirt, and although it was unlikely he could feel it in the moment captured, Jakes could sense the cold. The emptiness of the place.

The depravity that stood on the other side of the camera.

Strewn around his feet were flowers, not of the shop variety, but wild, the beauty of spring cut at the stems, condemned to a cold fate. A prologue, perhaps, to what faced his colleague. He swallowed uncomfortably, thinking back to the last time he saw him. God, it was only hours ago. How quickly things fell apart. How suddenly the tide of chaos swept the world off its feet.

_Was this his fault? For not hearing? For not knowing?_

_Thursday certainly thought so._

“Is he alive?” Thursday finally asked, not making a move to accept the picture.

Jakes looked at him, struggling to find the proper words to express his uncertainty.

But he could not.

He just held out the photo.

———

Morse awoke to the final notes of the prelude to Verdi’s _Macbeth_ being churned out by the battered phonograph that sat atop an equally distressed looking side table. He could hardly make out the shape through his clouded vision, but after blinking a few times his surroundings came into focus.

The opera was certainly out of place in the dismal room he was in. Aged damask wallpaper was curling off of the walls in several pages, loose ends torn off, leaving white scars across the ivy green pattern. The plaster ceiling had essentially rotted away, a victim to the efforts of time and disuse, exposing the wooden rafters and the roof above. Wind whistled from somewhere, a shrill, haunting sound. The window to his right was being assaulted by rain. Yet there had been obvious attempts to make the accommodations a touch more hospitable, the rusting phonograph, some odd pieces of furniture, and a grimy vase of brilliant blue flowers that seemed to absorb all of the potential colour the room once held. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a rattling breath and inhaling the unpleasant mixture of smoke, damp, and liquor.

A fireplace held a few weakly burning logs, flames sputtering but doing nothing to combat the chill that crawled across his skin. There was a fog that shrouded his mind, gradually clearing with every moment, the warmth of sensation steadily returning to his limbs, replaced with the harsher reality.

His feet were bare and Morse could feel rough floor beneath them, splinters threatening to pierce his skin. Rope around his ankles secured his legs to those of the chair. The rails of the chair’s backing dug into his spine and arms, and when he tried to bring his hands forward he found that he couldn’t, granted only the dull scrape of rope against wood. The less vile version of its metal counterpart. Bile rose his throat as the memory of his last time in handcuffs arose, and all the memories associated. The unforgiving stares of people meant to be on his side, the cold of the prison cell, each face belonging to an enemy.

Every bit of him ached, from his shins to his hip to his chest, arms, and throat, every bruise and mark that he’d received over the days singing a cacophonous song, making him feel like a battered ship against an unfriendly shoreline. Like operas, they expressed their tales of woe, memories slowly slinking back into their niches. There was a fight… at a castle. A monster disguised as a man. And Jakes. A quarrel amongst brothers in arms.

He didn’t know what it meant to be drugged. Not in a crude way as this was. Not for recreation either. One time, as a child, he had fallen from a tree he was confident he could scale and broken his arm. He’d been given morphine at the hospital for the pain. Waking then felt similar to this. The disorienting effects were not easily forgotten.

Straightening his neck only to discover a terrible crick, he looked off to his left and saw what he hadn’t before: the man in the corner.

Mason Gull.

Morse let out a shocked sound and pressed himself into the back of the chair he was secured to, ignoring the pain that flared through his wrists, only seeking to put as much distance between him and the madman as possible.

Gull looked up from the book that he was leafing through, his interest now completely and unnervingly on Morse.

He’d cleaned up since the night at the tower, in line with Connie Brooks’ description of him, having regained a slight facsimile of his previous appearance as Daniel Cronyn. It was the first time Morse saw him outside of darkness, fully able to register the change dealt by the years of hospitalization. Mason Gull was leaner, his face slightly sallow, indicating he’d previously had some amount of weight, but lost it suddenly. Morse thought back to what James Coates said about expecting to fill out once his medication began to work. It lined up with Clive Barton’s story. Gull had methodically stopped taking his pills, stockpiling them to barter with the guard, John Bridges.

Although his clothes betrayed no appearance of regality or high standing, a dark sweater that zipped a quarter of the way down his chest and plain trousers, Gull reclined in the moth-eaten armchair he sat in as if it were a grand throne, something that would not be amiss in Buckingham Palace or Versailles. A half empty bottle of some kind of alcohol sat partially beneath it, along with a glass, a camera, and a particularly wicked looking hunting dagger.

The same one Morse held in the tower. The one that was slick with George Ogden’s blood.

Disgust churned in his stomach and he looked away, but that was clearly a mistake as he found himself then trapped in the gaze of the killer.

Gull gave Morse a wry smile and looked back down at the book before closing it and holding it up for him to see. It was the first book of Dante Alighieri’s _Divine Comedy. Inferno._ But he recognized it beyond the title. The thread that embellished the cover was coming undone in the bottom right corner. The gold lettering was chipped. Cloth bookmark frayed from nervous hands picking at it.

It was the copy that should have been sitting on Morse’s bookshelf in his flat. Not in the hands of Mason Gull.

“‘As now I came once more to conscious mind- closed in those feelings for the kindred souls that had, in sudden sadness, overcome me- wherever I might move or send my gaze- new forms of torment, new tormented souls.’” he recited, the smile growing, fueled with pride in his own ability. He took the needle off the record just as the next song began to play. “Recognize it?”

“It’s from the sixth canto,” Morse found himself replying, unable to help the instinctual response as the answer leapt into the forefront of his thoughts. “Just as Dante enters the third circle of hell.”

Gull set the book aside and clapped once, looking almost gleeful. “Top marks, Endeavour. You must have read this one quite a few times.”

 _Or a dozen._ Morse didn’t want to say another word but he was afraid of what would happen once he stopped talking, when Gull’s attention lapsed from classics and he remembered the presence of the knife at his feet. “Once or twice.”

Gull raised an eyebrow. “No need to be modest.”

“I’m not.”

A shrug. “If you say so, Endeavour.”

“Don’t call me that.” He tried to bite back the words but they were already out.

Whether it was fortunate or not, the snap seemed to amuse the other man and he leaned forward in his seat, lips curling into mischief. Morse was struck with the image of a child, gleeful and unrelenting in the cruelty he found pleasure in.

“Why not?” Gull inquired, feigning innocence. “It is your name after all. Just as mine is Mason. You’re not ashamed of it, are you?”

“I’m not exactly fond of it.”

“Oh, but names are special, aren’t they? Well, sometimes.” Gull leapt to his feet, suddenly animated. Morse could do nothing but watch as the man strode around the small room, circling him and gesturing as he spoke. “Sometimes they’re plain, sometimes they’re rare. Like Endeavour.”

There was a pause before he stopped in front of Morse, leaning down so that his face was only inches away, the scent of cheap whisky on his stale breath. “And Constance. Did you figure that one out?”

Morse couldn’t close his eyes, but he gradually shifted away, the heat of Gull’s breath nauseating and intrusive, the proximity far more than unnerving. “You know I did,” he managed to say, maintains eye contact and feeling like he was staring into the eyes of some form of predator, cold, distant, but lit with the unquenched thirst for blood that was only slaked after a fresh kill. “That was the point of it, though, wasn’t it? Constance was a message, just like the rose. _Pas de deux’._ A dance for two. You wanted me to know what was coming. You all but advertised it.”

_Like an animal toying with prey. Like fate dangling the cut string before the eyes of whatever unfortunate soul they had sentenced._

Mason’s eyes gleamed, aglow with pride from the recognition, bracing his hands on Morse’s knees to lean in closer, causing Morse to fully turn away, forsaking his earlier warning. He couldn’t bear it any longer, but Gull didn’t seem to pay any mind to the discomfort, relishing int it, rather. “You worked it out after all. Sharp as a knife. I’m glad to see that prison hasn’t dulled you. Otherwise this wouldn’t be very interesting it all.”

And suddenly, he was gone, but the imprint still lingered, the ghost of his words, the scorch of his hands. Gull knelt beside his armchair and picked up the knife.

Morse’s breathe stilled in this throat, fear prickling like a thousand pins, chilling and searing at the same time. The effect of fear. He couldn’t find it in himself to be ashamed. There were men who knew no cowardice in the face of death. He could not throw himself in with that lot. There was a time when apathy trumped that fear, but it was not present when he needed it.

"I've thought about this moment nearly every day for two years." Gull drew close once again, wielding the knife as if were some precious gift, rather than a weapon. He gazed at it with such reverence, as if the life it had cut short was etched into it, some grotesquely ornate design that only he could ever appreciate.

Morse expected to find painfully cold metal pressed against the raw skin of his throat in the moments that followed, he expected to meet the fate that authors and seers attempted to portray to the masses, the unknown beyond the veil, but it did not come.

“I’m not going to kill you just yet, Morse,” Mason drawled, tilting the knife so that light skirted along the shining blade, burnished in the traces of morning brightness that permeated the dense cover of clouds. “In fact, if all goes to plan, I shan’t have a need to at all. There’s something I need from you, something I only briefly grasped when we first met. I sought an audience in you, and that you could always provide if I kept you here.” The tip of the blade pressed against his cheek, and Morse tried to keep from shuddering as he felt the sick warmth of blood begin to trail down his face. A small nick. But tiny fractures were prone to opening into fissures. Gull’s voice was close to Morse’s ear when it spoke next. “But what good is a songbird in a cage? You’d only dash yourself against the bars. In which case it would suit me better to snap your neck instead.”

He took _Inferno_ into his hand once again, holding it as if it held all the answers, like it was some holy scripture he was forever devoted to. “I believe that in all of us there is some shred of darkness waiting to be fed, some scrawny little thing that requires nurturing in order to blossom.” There was something crazed in his eyes, in his unceasing grin. “Like Virgil to Dante, I wish to be your guide. I can unveil the illusions of life, lead you through the hell we must all face. You could be so much more than a biographer. No, I wish you to be my _compatriot_ in this nation of darkness. I want you to find that scrap within you and bring it to the surface.”

Morse shook his head, pulling his bound hands against the rails of the chair, unsure of what the action was meant to accomplish. It only seemed to paint his futility in more vivid tones. Pain flared in his joints and the abrasive material dug into his wrists.

"There's such beauty in this, Endeavour," Gull persisted, continuing his delusional sermon. "It was opera at first, but this time I had to do something else. Something that would capture your attention. You were a Greats man at Oxford. This was the perfect fit. Bringing the tales of the bard to life in a way that he could never accomplish on stage. You studied this. This was your scripture. I knew it had to be this. Something to catch your fancy. Lure you in. What do you think? These masterpieces, these renditions, you could have your hand it in it as well. Far more than a simple muse. More than an observer."

He wished he could close his ears off to the words that clawed their way into his head, the words of madness and unreason, the words from a man that only wished to deface what was good in the world. 

What was he asking? For him to become something like Gull?

He could never.

He'd seen death. Come far too close to it. Dancing, treading along the precipice, either by accident or flawed design. But never,  _never,_ had he desired or had cause to lend a hand to it. Never had he found temptation in depravity. There were times where he would let himself go, stray beyond the breach, but never too far, never distant from the path, always near, always in sight. Drink was different than this. Evil wasn't at the bottom of those bottles. He only went there looking for solace. Perhaps someone as mad as Gull could find that in terrible deeds. 

That was what he wanted. For Morse to admit something that wasn't true. 

He wanted an equal. But in truth, they could not be more dissimilar. 

“You can’t till soil that has nothing to give.” Morse protested, his mind already racing, searching for solutions. Just like a crossword. All the questions were there. The answers needed filling in.

But each time he hid a dead end. Nothing fit. He would never be able to get the knife with his hands the way they were. And playing along in this dreadful charade- he would only dig his grave deeper. At the end he would remain at the bottom of this pit. Left to die.

Mason eyed him strangely, the gleam in his eyes dimming. Morse would have to be a fool to miss the shift in his demeanor. But rather than read it as the warning sign it was, he forged on, headstrong, hoping he was on the way to breaking through to something. Put a fissure in his narcissism. “Whatever do you mean?”

“This… _darkness_ you claim to know lies in every man,” Morse laughed bitterly, almost scoffing at the statement. Any pessimistic student who got their hands on a decent copy of _Leviathan_ could be converted to such an attitude. He’d seen those false seers in the colleges, those who claimed to be so familiar with the unchanging ways of men. _Everyone is born evil, there’s no two ways about it._ “I don’t have it. Not in the way you want.”

“You do.” Gull’s smile was rigid now. Forced. He set the book down. “I know it. When I heard you killed that man, when I saw it in the paper, I was elated beyond belief. Yes, you were acquitted, vindicated, proven innocent, but the capacity is there. They could not label you so without a shred of truth. Endeavour Morse, the adder beneath the roses, the cuckoo in the nest-”

“You’re wrong, Mason. And you always will be. You can’t just _convert_ someone to your madness. You-”

Morse had pushed far enough, past bending, gone straight to the breaking point. But it was not what he intended. His words were cut short as Gull surged forward, his hand snapping out to seize him by the throat, forcing him to arch his neck painfully over the back of the chair. Morse gasped, unable to breathe, meeting the eyes of the monster and finding nothing there. There was substance, substance in the sense that a chasm still held something within it.

Pain lanced like stoked flames, resurrected with equal might, stealing the breath he didn’t have. 

And then, in the same fashion as before, Mason seemed to come back to himself, slowly relaxing his hold, then pulling away, casting Morse such a look of disdain that he half expected him to make use of the partially forgotten weapon in his other hand. Instead, he used it to point at Morse with such accusation as the man coughed, drawing in the absent air.

“People believe in God,” Gull spat, shaking with silent rage, his sickly face slowly reddening. “They put on their absurd Sunday outfits and go to church, and for what? Because they fear the flames of hell. The eternity of death. You will join them, Endeavour. You _will_ _believe._ Or you will die. Do not forget I have three lines left in this sonnet.”

Morse could only watch as Gull gave his knife a meaningful glance before sheathing it in the leather scabbard at his side, making his way toward the rotting door and pausing with his hand on the frame.

“I’ll give you some time to think on this.” he said calmly. “You can either be a second author to my elegy, or the grand finale. I’d hate to waste such potential, but I’m sure equal pleasure will be found in taking your life.”

He reached into his pocket and cast something behind him, a small bit of metal that rolled to a stop at Morse’s feet. Another one of those bronze coins. With Morse’s initials stamped into it.

Gull slammed the door shut after him, and Morse closed his eyes, trying to calm himself, clear his thoughts of the useless panic that he couldn’t seem to escape. 

This was no room. This was a sepulchre.


	10. Purgatorio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back from a long hiatus! Hopefully this chapter will have been worth the wait, and thank you all again for your patience. I expect to be back to a somewhat regular updating schedule since school's out now, but I'll be juggling my other fic and there's one in planning so we'll see how things go. 
> 
> [Purgatorio - Italian for Purgatory, also the second book of Dante's Divine Comedy]

Morse wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Gull stormed out and the gradual loss of feeling in his hands didn’t act as the most accurate keeper of minutes and hours. There was no significant change in the weather and staring out of the window only served to add more tension in his neck. The brief moment of brightness he’d witnessed earlier was soon devoured by the gluttonous storm clouds, darkening the atmosphere and causing the struggling flames in the fireplace to cast grotesque shadows over the room.

Escape seemed futile in his current state, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. He was hardly able to get the chair to move more than a few inches in any direction, and the ropes proved to be a much more formidable opponent than expected. Any way he angled his wrists or twisted his fingers couldn’t grant him sufficient access to the intricate knot, even pulling forward in an attempt to snap the rails was fruitless.

It must have been at least an hour that he spent trying to find some way to free himself before Gull returned, only stopping when his stubbornness hit a wall. Morse slumped back in the chair, his arms burning from the exertion, a frustrated, keening cry building in the back of his throat. He grit his teeth to contain the sound, breathing heavily through his nose so he wouldn’t scream.  

He wanted to. Something desperate, feral, raw within him wanted to yell until his throat was hoarse and tasted of copper, abandon any concern for consequence and just let it out.

But the last logical part of his mind was able to persuade the tide of terror that self perseveration came in different forms. Anything was would usher Mason Gull back was something to be avoided. At least for the moment. This was the second burst of rage Morse had witnessed from him in as many days and he didn’t think he would survive a third. Not when it could have just as easily been a knife in his chest instead of a hand at his throat.

Besides, from what he could gather, there was no one else around to hear him. When Morse looked out of the window, all he saw was a dense wood skirting the expanse of land the building sat on. There was no high street, no smoke billowing from chimney tops, no tops of umbrellas or hoods of vehicles. Just trees. A dark forest, with a faint carpet of bluebells. But they stopped after a short distance. Something was beyond them.

The only other visible structure was a half rotted, ivy choked woodshed nestled between two sturdy maples, slouching in on itself with a posture that spoke of nothing other than defeat. A crumbling well sat nearby, bricks scattered around it, evidence that there had been a botched attempt at restoring it to some shadow of its former standing.

His first impression: no one had lived in this place for ages. It bore the empty weight of abandonment, something so familiar he could sense it from the confines of the single room he was trapped in.

The house itself had to be of some significant size because the angle from which he could view the world outside told him that he was higher up, first or second floor. There were ghosts, imprints of the lives that formerly occupied it. Weathered grooves in the floor from furniture being moved. Marks on the doorframe from where a child’s height was measured over time. Someone had cared enough to chronicle part of the progression, then the tradition slowly began to peter away halfway up. Perhaps it had been nice once, this house. Perhaps it used to be a home. Somewhere warm to return to, a sanctuary from the rest of the world.

Or perhaps it had always been as cold and foreboding as it was now. Hollow. Unyielding. Like a blossom that refused to bloom, sealed even as the frost thawed. Forever in night.

He could have scoffed at himself if he had half the mind to. Analyzing such trivial things at a time like this.

 _“You will walk about with your head in the clouds,”_ Thursday had chastised him once, but Morse shrugged it off. He was used to the runaway-train nature of his own thoughts, well aware that there was nothing he himself could do to slow it. He found sedation at the bottom of a bottle.

And Mason Gull did with morphine.

The line drawn between the two felt like an insult and a punch all at once. He didn’t want a single thing in common with that man. The abomination that wore a human form.

He couldn’t say how much time had passed since the man left. But it had been enough for Morse to attempt to decipher Gull’s mad words. _A compatriot._ That was what he wanted of him. It almost made sense in a twisted sort of way. Gull would never be able to live without someone there to admire his works, his depraved art. He was a performer, he lived for the attention. Perhaps the satisfaction of merely exhibiting his crimes had died out. He needed something closer.

He wanted Morse to be his witness.

A disciple.

His narcissism was so grand that he truly believed himself capable of treating someone’s nature as a malleable, moldable thing that he could recreate in his own image.

_The knife was in his hand._

The rage he felt earlier was slowly turning to panic. Morse hung his head, closing his eyes, letting every small sound wash over him, knitting together a blanket of noise. Drowning his thoughts out.

Rain was falling. Peeling wallpaper rustled from a draught.

Without warning, the memory took hold.

_He hardly heard the window open. There was a soft slide of the frame against the rail, a slight catch on a splinter, and the sounds of the storm leapt through the open floodgates, entering the flat. A shuffling of the sparse few items on the countertop being pushed aside.  Morse fought to open his eyes, but the weight of sleep was unusually strong, some additional force pulling on him, keeping him under. A riptide._

_Something was wrong._

_Morse opened his mouth to call for Jakes but nothing but a strained rasp of air came out. His body refused to move. He was trapped. Trapped in his own body, his sluggish mind attempting to form a single coherent thought that wasn’t clouded by darkness and panic._

_A face loomed over him in the dark. A demon grinning maliciously, soaked from the storm, but silenced by it as well._

_There was a prick in his arm that he barely registered,  and the face disappeared, along with everything else._

_“Morse.”_

“Morse.”

The voice brought him back into the room, abducting him from the memory, and Morse opened his eyes to the same face that had just vanished from his mind.

The change was nearly imperceptible, but he noticed it immediately, There was something different about Gull’s appearance, something calmer that made him seem more like a dull carving knife than a well sharpened dagger. But the smell was what gave it away. Sickly sweet. Morse couldn’t quite place it, but his mind likened it to honeysuckle.

Gull was back on his morphine.

A cold shiver of dread worked its way down his back, but Morse did his utmost not to show it, instead straightening his posture and staring straight ahead. He felt a defiant bit of anger creep into his expression, but Gull either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Wordlessly, the man reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, silver switchblade, light bouncing off the mother of pearl decorated sides.

Morse instinctively flinched away from the blade, however, Mason didn’t seem to have any intention of intimidating him with it like before. Instead, he knelt in front of Morse and cut the ropes around his ankles. Then, he circled behind the chair. Morse felt the rough tug of rope against his hands, and the chill of metal against the inside of his wrists, and within moments both were gone, replaced with a sudden rush of warmth. He didn’t even pause to think about why Gull had cut him loose. The relief was so strong he slumped forward with a sigh and brought his now freed hands in front of him, holding them to his chest. The raw skin began to burn and a painful tingling like a swarm of bees had flooded his veins and Morse cautiously stretched his fingers out, trying to work some feeling back into them.

He could run. His gaze darted toward the open doorway, the gray darkness beyond it.

But he doubted he would make it very far before the knife found its way into his back.

The shallow creaking of floorboards told him that Gull was walking back around and Morse looked up, massaging his hands.

“Why?” _What is this about?_

There was no way he was being freed. Not completely.

Gull looked up from folding the knife, the poisonous colour of his irises choked by a sea of dark pupil.

“‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.’” When Morse didn’t respond, Gull continued. “Marcel Proust.”

He was afraid of the answer but he asked anyway. “What are you saying?”

Mason shifted on his feet, his fingernails digging into the fabric of his own sweater. They were crusted with something dark. Red. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face, making his eyes seemed even more hollow than they already were. “Quid pro quo, Endeavour. It’s unreasonable of me to hold you prisoner like this when we’re meant to be equals.”

“You’re not letting me go.” It was almost a question, but not one that needed asking.

“No.” Gull gestured toward the door. “Just a walk. Clear your thoughts”

Morse stared back. “My thoughts are clear enough. Unlike yours.”

The smile fell from Gull’s face.

Before Morse could even react, Gull advanced on him, his sedentary demeanor completely eradicated, as if a switch had been flipped. Morse clumsily got to his feet, knocking the chair over in the process, his feet tangling in the ropes on the floor, but Gull was quicker, more determined, seizing Morse by the arm, blood stained hands like claws dragging him stumbling from the room.

The rest of the house was more of the same, a narrow, dark hallway leading to a set of unreliable stairs, half of the bannister missing, the rails scattered along the floor below. Unintelligible graffiti marks from past vandals were painted across the aged wood panelling. He did his best to memorize the path they took, but it was almost difficult. There was something not quite right about the size of the place. It certainly wasn’t a manor or chalet, it lacked the opulent decor and design. But as they passed through a large commons area, furniture covered with moth eaten sheets, stained glass windows boarded over, a bar area nestled against a wall, an a decrepit piano, he knew this wasn’t a house. Not as he once thought. No, it was more like an inn, an abandoned establishment.

It wasn’t uncommon for owners to live on the premises, Morse managed to think in the strange, disorienting darkness, much of his focus was dedicated to not tripping over himself. That would explain the room he was held in. The height markings on the door. The owners had a child.

He didn’t have time to dwell on the fate of whatever family had once owned the place. Gull’s vice-like grip was unrelenting and bruising, the man not even looking at him until they reached a rotted, paint stripped door, pushing him ungracefully through it.

Morse didn’t even register the fact that he was outside before he hit the ground, pain shooting through his shoulder as he awkwardly caught himself. The ground was damp from the rain, softer, cushioning his fall. The storm had let up considerably, transformed into a slight mist that lightly tapped the leaves, falling over his skin in a delicate chill. It was brighter than the filthy windows let on and he closed his eyes from the light, momentarily blinded as he tried to orient himself.

The door closed, Gull walking out into the yard, stopping to stand beside Morse and extend his hand, smiling politely as if he hadn’t just brutally dragged the constable through the house before throwing him on the ground. “Up you get.”

Morse briefly entertained the possibility of running. Right then. But he looked up at Gull’s hand hovering just above him. He was too close.

Every fibre of his being screamed in protest as he reached up, grasping Mason’s hand and allowing himself to be hauled to his feet. The grass was slick and he almost slipped as he regained his footing, feeling an odd but not quite unfamiliar dizziness in his head.

The land was large, owing to the rural surroundings it was situated in. If it really was an inn like he thought then it made sense there would be an outdoors area for the clientele to meander around in, smoking and drinking at the picnic tables in the small patio area. When Morse looked around he could see everything he noticed from the window, the woodshed, the well, even the bluebells through the trees. But what was new on the ground were the large double doors to some kind of a cellar, and a slightly overgrown, but still visible path that ran into the woods. A slouching garage hugged the main building. Everything was fenced in up until the forest’s edge, Morse realized with sinking dread. Tall, too tall to see over. Too tall to climb quickly.

But inns had to be accessible to travelers, otherwise they stood no chance of getting business. A dangerous, reckless form of hope began to blossom in his chest, and he clung to it. They were either near or on some form of a main road wherever they were. A route either previously or still well travelled. Gull began to drift toward the direction of the well, casually putting his hands in his pockets. Morse could see bricks and stones scattered in the grass around it, an idea coming to mind. If they got close enough, he thought, he could manage to grab one and use it as a weapon. Take his chances with the woods. Paths always led somewhere, after all. There could be a road on the other side, not too far. Better to hide from Gull in there than ruin his chance by struggling to go over the fence.

“I’ve been thinking.” Gull began in a musing sort of tone, glancing at Morse over his shoulder as if to make sure he was paying attention. Morse pretended to look interested and the man seemed pleased as he continued. “The next sequence. A double event might be fitting. Two birds with one stone. A Romeo and his Juliet, perhaps.”

Morse’s head began to pound and it was all he could do to not press a hand to his temple. _This conversation couldn’t really be happening._

He swallowed, feeling his throat bob nervously. _Play along._ How was he meant to do that?

“Morse?”

“Constance Brooks.” Morse said suddenly, weakly attempting to change the subject. He couldn’t even fathom a way to discuss the potential murder of a young couple, nevermind offer input. There was, however, something he did want to know, and just maybe he could occupy Gull long enough with this line of intrigue. They were close now. Closer to the well, nearer to the woodshed. “How did you even know we wouldn’t get there in time to save her?”

A dark glint appeared in his eyes, his smile far from reaching them. Morse had apparently played his cards well for once. “I decided it was only fair for me to give you a fighting chance after what happened with George. Besides, where’s the fun without a little risk?” Gull blinked, then chuckled, rubbing his forehead. “No, sorry, that’s not quite right, is it? Constance. Your mother’s name.”

“Where did you get that from?” Morse inquired, but Gull ignored that question, too lost in his own words.

“I left her alive,” Mason stopped walking and reached up to pluck a leaf from the low branch of a tree, twirling it between his fingers before letting it fall mesmerizingly to the ground. “So you could finally have a chance to save her.”

The last words Gull had uttered to him before his arrest on the rooftop of Alfredus college seared themselves in the front of his mind.

_“I know who you couldn’t save, Morse!”_

Gull might as well have struck him. Wordlessly, he stared at the madman, struggling to suppress his disgust and disbelief.

“I took a look in your file when Chief Superintendent Bright invited me to the station.” Mason explained, something akin to pride playing across his features. “Mother, Constance Morse. Deceased. You must have been around twelve. A young man with a promising career in academia ends up a police officer. I put it all together when you came to see me at my office that night. Your need to save people was born from your failure to save _her._ It couldn’t have been Rosalind Stromming, although that must have been quite a blow. No, she died _after_ you joined the force. So it must have been your mother. It was, wasn’t it?”

“You couldn’t possibly understand that.”

Mason cocked his head. “Because I killed my mother?”

“Yes.” _You killed your mother. Buried an ax in her head that you got from the woodshed-_

Morse suddenly staggered backward, quickly looking between the inn and the woodshed, his lips parted with silent and shocked epiphany.

Dorothea Frazil had dug up information on the Gulls that she shared with him and Thursday. It had been years ago, but he could still remember the crime scene photos taken by the old editor, Sid Mears. The bloodied sheet music. A woman, Mrs. Gull, lifeless and mutilated, slumped over the keys of the piano, the ax that killed her still lodged in the back of her skull. The coaching inn the family ran that looked strikingly like the exterior of this building.

_He saw the piano. The woodshed._

_All roads lead to home._

This was Mason Gull’s home. Those markings on the doorframe…those were _his._ From when he was a child.

He’d lived in that room. Lived in this inn. All the way up until he was committed over a decade ago.

_Wolvercote._

That was it. The Gulls used to run a coaching inn by Wolvercote. He knew where he was now. No more than a handful of miles north of Cowley.

“You killed your mother,” Morse’s voice was hoarse when he spoke. “Right here. In that place. With an ax from the woodshed.”

Mason’s expression went dark. Morse continued to back away toward the well, Gull following. “It was on my fifteenth birthday.”

“Why?” _Why then?_

“It was the best gift I could receive.” he said plainly. “She was a whore, always carrying off with different men, and that general-” Mason broke off, his face contorting with sudden rage, the memories flooding in. “She drove my father away early on with these habits of hers. He would have taken me with him, but he was too simple minded, too weak. Never could quite hold a job. But I would never let myself be like him. Mother- oh, she never had a chance. She was playing the piano, singing for _him._ I was done. It was the only thing to do. But we both lost our mothers around the same age, Endeavour. We’re more alike than you know.”

Morse touched a brick with the side of his foot, sensing where it was. He shook his head. “No, Mason, we really aren’t. You proved it just now.”

“How so?”

“My mother died of disease. I loved her.” Morse said, keeping his voice steady. Blood pounded in his ears, heart racing, nerves thrumming. “But that’s something you were never capable of. You murdered yours.”

In one swift movement he seized the brick and swung it at Gull’s head with both hands, connecting with a sickening sound. A feral shout that came from one of them, most likely Gull, but Morse didn’t waste any time in thinking about it, dropping the stone, turning and bolting toward the forest.

It certainly wasn’t one of his brightest ideas, but it was the most sensible in the moment. He threw his arms up to protect his face against the wild underbrush, sapling branches whipping at him violently. Twigs cracked under his feet, stinging the soles and the raw skin around his ankles. Morse turned his head for a brief moment to gauge where Gull was and stumbled roughly into a tree, scraping his upper arm. He drew in a hiss of air between gritted teeth but kept moving.

“MORSE!”

He’d hardly made it more than a couple yards further before there was an explosion of wood splinters as a bullet buried itself into a tree right in front of him. Morse let out a startled cry and fell back, dropping to the ground, falling among the bluebells. His hands flew to cover his head as several more shots were fired, all striking trees somewhere above him, ensuring that he wouldn’t rise.

_Since when did Gull have a gun?_

Morse tried to begin crawling through the flowers, using his forearms to pull himself across the ground, but within moments Gull had reached him, kicking him onto his back and pressing his knee onto his chest as he pulled a length of rope from his pocket. Morse’s strikes barely seemed to affect him until he landed a punch to Gull’s throat.

Mason croaked, gasping, stunned enough for Morse to scramble away, pushing Gull off him and getting to his feet. The cord wrapped around his ankle and he tripped, hitting the ground hard. All he could hear was his heartbeat and a shrill ringing in his ears. The ghost sirens again. Warning bells. _Get up. Get up, get up, get up-_

There was a sharp blow to his head and sirens went quiet.

\------

James Coates saw his sister’s face on the front page of the Oxford Mail that morning.

One of the orderlies, a man called Simmons, lived in Oxford, closer to Sandford-on-Thames from what he’d gathered. Just one of the many staff members who suffered some of the longer commutes. Every day they published, without fail, Simmons came in with a copy of the Mail, passing it off to the patients when he was through with it.

James was sitting in the commons area, watching some benign, board approved channel on the telly with a handful of other patients he knew slightly. A talk show personality cracked a joke he hardly heard and there were scattered chuckles among those not too sedated to appreciate it. His attention was on Simmons, watching his every step, his eyes fixed on the paper tucked under the orderly’s arm as he paced back and forth along the noon medication line.

“Alright there, James?” Northcott had appeared at the side of the sofa, peering down at James from beneath his dark eyebrows. “Do you need something?”

“Hullo, North. Done with that paper yet, is he?” James nodded toward Simmons, balling up the ends of his too-long sleeves in his fists to disguise the steadily worsening tremor.

If Northcott noticed he said nothing, turning to find who James was gesturing at. Spotting Simmons, he shrugged. “Would you like me to ask him?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” James tried for a small smile but his nerves were too shaky to muster anything close.

“Of course. Back in a tick.” Northcott headed off toward the line, approaching Simmons and clapping him on the shoulder, greeting him with a smile. Words were exchanged that James couldn’t hear, but he watched as Simmons took one last glance at the newspaper before folding it once more and passing it to North.

The guard was back to James, handing over the long-awaited prize. James quickly seized it, his hands darting out and frantically orienting it so the front page was facing up.

“Easy there, Jim!” Northcott gave him a surprised look which James effectively ignored, staring at the massive headline screaming up at him from the paper.

**OXFORD MAIL**

_15th May, 1967._

_Editor: Dorothea Frazil_

**|RETURN OF THE OPERA PHANTOM- FOUR DEAD, ONE MISSING, SURVIVOR IN HOSPITAL|**

_Mason Gull, patient of Broadmoor Hospital and perpetrator of a series of opera related murders in Oxford in 1965 escaped from the Crowthorne psychiatric facility at an undisclosed time in the past few months, murdering an orderly in the process. The Oxford City Police has confirmed Gull to be the killer of three with the failed attempt at a fourth in the Oxford area in the past few days alone. The identity of the surviving victim will remain anonymous for the time being._

**Detective Constable E. Morse, Missing Since Evening of Sunday the 14th.**

The subheading was followed by a formal looking photograph of the detective constable James had only just seen the other day, along with a short article detailing the manner of his abduction and a brief description of the man that the black and white photo didn’t offer. Below that, there was a group of four photographs. Three men and one woman, their names listed underneath the respective photos.

John Bridges | Petra Coates | Robert Kingsley Sr. | George Ogden

They used his sister’s school photo. She’d come to visit at the beginning of term, the packet of photos in hand, her face shining with glee. Mother and father had taken her to get them professionally done, a sort of present for getting into St. Matilda’s. This was one such photo.

It didn’t belong there. No. Petra was safe, safe at school. Mason promised, Morse promised-

He scanned the article for her name and found a single sentence dedicated to her.

_The body of the second victim, Miss Petra Coates, was discovered on the morning of the twelfth on the grounds outside the Radcliffe Camera, dead from a poisonous injection._

Dead.

No.

No, no, no, no-

“NO!” James threw the paper down and screamed, pummeling his legs with his fists. “NO!”

“Oi, Simmons, give me some backup!” Northcott barked over his shoulder, seizing James’s wrists to still him. “James, calm down son, it’s alright.”

“She’s dead,” James howled, hot tears searing his cheeks. “He _killed_ her.”

North looked over at the discarded paper, his face paling. “Good God.”

There was a prick in his arm and James looked just in time to see a nurse taking a syringe away. He let out a strangled cry and struggled against Northcott as the edges of his vision began to blur.

_Mason, you liar. You filthy liar. We’re through._

_I owe you nothing now._

“Thursday,” James hissed, closing his eyes. “Get Inspector Thursday.”

He heard North say something, but it was muted, his words swimming above him as he sank deeper and deeper.

Then, nothing.

\------

When Morse awoke, everything was dark, save for a window of light above him. The ground was hard and cold, his back against a chilly stone wall. As he sat forward, he winced, his head throbbing viciously, and, reaching to try and touch the new wound, he discovered his hands were bound again, this time in front of him.

A set of stone stairs led up to the source of light and there stood Mason Gull, only visible from the shoulders up.

Fear began to prickle in his veins as he realized that he must be in the cellar.

“Mother used to lock me in here when I was young.” Gull said grimly, his face expressionless. “Thought it’d teach me something. Not sure what. But maybe you’ll know. I’ll be back by nightfall, I’ve something to tend to in Oxford.” He sighed. “I expected more of you.”

“Mason, Mason- NO!” Morse shouted, but his cries fell on deaf ears.

The doors to the cellar closed, the bolt being thrown with a terrible sense of finality, shutting him in purgatory. 

Darkness filled all of his senses.

Finally, he did what he daren’t before.

He started screaming.


End file.
